Lena is a bright, disabled girl who, after years spent studying at home, is keen to get back to school. She is assigned to a special class for disabled pupils who have to present themselves before a school commission at the end of the year in order to prove that they merit being moved back into a "normal" class. Her enervated teachers, however, show absolutely no desire to motivate the students and help them improve; on the contrary, they try to quash right from the start any interest Lena shows in more complex study material. Nevertheless, Lena soon involves herself in the school routine and gets together with classmate Anton. Yet their transparent happiness is not to everyone's liking and repercussions soon follow.
Acting
Mariya Poezzhaeva's defiant stillness speaks volumes.
Direction
Tverdovsky's clinical eye makes cruelty feel bureaucratically inevitable.
Director
Ivan I. Tverdovsky
Mariya Poezzhaeva
Lena Chekhova
Philipp Avdeev
Anton Sobolev
Nikita Kukushkin
Mishka
Artyom Markaryan
Mitka
Natalya Pavlenkova
Svetlana Viktorovna, Lena's Mother
Irina Vilkova
Lyudmila Nikolaevna
Olga Lapshina
Polina Soboleva
Elena Nesterova
Math Teacher
Yuliya Serina
Vitka
Sergey Ivanuk
Police Officer
Marina Nikolaeva
Elena Viktorovna, Head Teacher
Elena Makhova
Makhova
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Russian 'correction classes' were real segregated institutions; Tverdovsky filmed in actual abandoned facilities. The institutional rot you see is documentary-adjacent.
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