Lena, a Russian expat in Berlin, is struggling to find acting work. Luckily, she still has her gig inside a giant bear costume.

Like her lead character, first-time director Elisabeth Werchosin is a Russian artist who relocated to Berlin – and her strange, comic rendering of the disorientation and loneliness of exile is filled with real pathos and anxiety. It’s a deadpan surrealistic odyssey set among the city’s Soviet-era outskirts, with a chaotic birthday picnic that blends humour and tragedy in a moment you won’t forget.