Stand By Me

Young, idealistic, ambitious architect Kira’s life is turned upside down when she experiences a terrible loss.. Her comfort zone happens to be as fragile and fictitious as the scale models of the architectural projects she assembles. Kira (a great, understated performance from Katya Ermishina), who from the outside seems to have everything in order, now has to come to terms with herself – and also with her distant mother whom she hasn’t seen for years, and not without reason.

Stand By Me – the confident fiction feature debut of Russian filmmaker Tamara Dondurey, who previously made the documentary 21 Days (2014) and two short films, Little Train (2017) and New Moscow (2018) – is a delicate, intimate character study of a young woman on the verge of an existential crisis. The camera frequently zooms in on Kira’s tormented face, revealing how much she wants to break free of what is left unsaid and unresolved.

---
Available on Festival Scope Pro from 26 January 9:00 CET to 14 February 9:00 CET