Credits: screenplay: Alexei Popogrebsky; director of photography: Pavel Kostomarov; editor: Ivan Lebedev; music: Dmitry Katkhanov; sound: Vladimir Golovnitski; production design: Gennady Popov; costume design: Svetlana Mikhailova; producer: Roman Borisevich; production: Koktebel Film Company;

Country: Russia

Year: 2010

Running time: 124

Colour: Colour

Format: 35 mm

Two men work taking readings from their partly radioactive surroundings at an isolated meteorological station in the Arctic, at the far east of Russia. One is in his fifties and has adjusted to this life where 24-hour daylight is the norm, and the only connection to the rest of the world is radio. The other, his new partner, is a young, eager man who surrounds himself with video games and other technologies. Tension builds between the two men. Simple, in terms of narrative, but an incredibly complex film in which rugged wintry landscape and industrial parts, often abstracted, embedded in the mise-en-scene are the prime movers. Howard Feinstein