The man who made Russian cinema dangerous finally tells his own brutal truth.
His motto was laconic: "I promised - stay still." This is how Alexei Balabanov lived, raised his sons, was friends, and so filmed. A legendary director and an extraordinary person who made both "festival" and "mass" films with equal ease. He was a great father and a difficult husband, a loyal friend and an honest guy. Balabanov with his life, passions, losses, burning pain on the way to God in the memories of those closest to him - mother, sons, wife and friends. He seems to be telling the crew again: "Let's do it talentedly!"
Direction
Snigireva lets silences scream louder than any talking head could.
Editing
Jagged cuts between home videos and film clips mirror Balabanov's fractured soul.
Director
Lyudmila Snigireva
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title comes from Balabanov's actual on-set mantra to anxious actors — he was notoriously impatient with neuroticism.
This arrived during a Russian documentary boom re-examining controversial 90s figures, but few subjects commanded such polarized devotion and disgust.
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