Awards : Prix du meilleur premier film au festival Une fenêtre sur l’Europe, Vyborg, 2005.
Prix de la Guilde des historiens et critiques de cinéma au Festival Stalker, Moscou, 2005
Plot synopsis
«Pavlov’s Dog» is the film debut for several members of its production team including the screenwriter – director Katya Shagalova, and cinematographer Evgeny Sinelnikov. It is a Russian version of Milos Forman’s «One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest». But the conflict in Katya Shagalova’s film is not between doctors and patients like in Forman’s film, but rather between freedom and captivity, between life in a sanatorium for people with mental disorders and life on the other side of the gates where the «healthy» people live.
The film centers on the story of Ksenia and Maxim, two twenty-year-olds who have met and fallen in love in the sanatorium. They were both sent there by their relatives who want to shield themselves from their children and their problems. Ksenia is an alchoholic and Maxim is suicidal. Gradually we understand that the heroes, betrayed by their relatives, fenced inside the sani-torium, constrained by regimes and the cult of work therapy, are healthier and more free than many of those who live on the outside.
Source : www.intercinema.ru
