A girl with a secret assignment arrives in a provincial town, where she meets a scavenger, who in the evening turns out to be an elegant and ironic respectable gentleman. A mutual interest arises between them, and they begin to play the game, trying to guess each other's past.
Acting
Guskov's dual performance—gritty scavenger vs. ironic gentleman
Costume
The visual transformation that defines the film's central metaphor
Director
Giorgi Shengelia
Aleksey Guskov
Garbage Man
Olesya Sudzilovskaya
Girl
Vladimir Gusev
Mayor
Vladimir Salnikov
GarbageMan's Boss
Aleksandr Robak
Provincial Bandit
Aleksandr Berda
Assistant Mayor
Vladimir Sterzhakov
Man at the Roulette Table
Nelli Nevedina
bartender in the Casino
Evgeny Serov
Doorman at the Casino
Valeriy Ivakov
hooligan
Mikhail Levchenko
Gurskiy
Yuri Kolokolnikov
(Voice) (Text behind the Scenes)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on a novel by Viktor Pelevin, whose work often explores Russian identity through surreal, philosophical premises.
The film captures early 2000s post-Soviet provincial Russia, where economic collapse made class performance both absurd and necessary survival strategy.
RU
