Among Grey Stones

Based on a short story called In Bad Company by the Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko. A judge mourns the death of his wife, unable to come to terms with the dreadful reality. Meanwhile, his son befriends a couple of street urchins.
Muratova delicately explores ‘respectable’ society and its ‘underground’ as two opposing worlds that have nothing in common except for feelings of alienation, hopelessness and doom. This was the first time she worked with children, portraying them in a totally unconventional way, and the result is astonishing.
Among Grey Stones was heavily censored by the Soviet officials. In response, Muratova withdrew her name from the credits and took a pseudonym: Ivan Sidorov, which, being one of the most common of Russian male names, reads as ‘Mr Average’.