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"A ravishingly shot, thought-provoking triumph of non-linear filmmaking." – Screen International
Russia, 2017: a century since revolution. In a desolate landscape, characters wander past human-made objects such as a decrepit statue of Lenin and an abandoned, half-finished skyscraper: monuments to the failure of two economic systems. Elsewhere, an intellectual on hard times conducts museum tours in historical dress, a 12-year-old girl is kidnapped and a cleaning robot patrols an empty villa.
A collaborator on his father's jaw-dropping, posthumous magnum opus Hard to be a God (MIFF 2014), Alexey German Jr (Paper Soldier, MIFF 2009) is a distinctive filmmaker in his own right. With Under Electric Clouds, he crafts a very different – but equally accomplished – parable of a country, and world, on the brink of social collapse.
Co-winner of the Silver Bear for cinematography at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival (an award shared with Sebastian Schipper's Victoria, also screening in this year's program).