

A comedy inspired by legends and myths of Ancient Greece, and by the biographies of the most trendy and popular characters of Moscow’s social Olympus. The film’s hero is a Greek, who decides to repeat Odyssey’s journey but accidentally sails the wrong way. He finds himself in modern Moscow, where he gets acquainted with well-known personalities. These celebrities unselfishly perform incredible nonsense, while the Greek immediately fames himself as a problem-solver. And his advice always works, even if not quite the way the customers want. But the main problem which the Greek must solve is his own. He falls in love with Maria, the wife of Moscow’s “Zeus”. And to conquer her, the Greek must first rescue all the “gods” on the Moscow Olympus.
Status
Released
Original Language
RU
Budget
$665,000
Revenue
$902,684

Roughly chronological, from 3/96 to 11/96, with a coda in spring of 1997: inside compounds of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara. (Members confessed to a murderous sarin attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.) We see what they eat, where they sleep, and how they respond to media scrutiny, on-going trials, the shrinking of their fortunes, and the criticism of society. Central focus is placed on Hiroshi Araki, a young man who finds himself elevated to chief spokesman for Aum after its leaders are arrested. Araki faces extreme hostility from the Japanese public, who find it hard to believe that most followers of the cult had no idea of the attacks and even harder to understand why these followers remain devoted to the religion, if not the violence.


Ivan
Outskirts of Moscow. A girl comes to an unfamiliar apartment to look after a dog. After a while, she realizes that the owner of the apartment has disappeared. She finds herself into a series of people that have been taking care of the dog for years in that same apartment, creating a weird community around this strange absence of the owner.