A GENTLE CREATURE | Dir. Sergei Loznitsa | 2017 | 143 min
Presented in Russian with English subtitles.

Master director Sergei Loznitsa’s timely A Gentle Creature digs deep into the Russian countryside and presents a unique view of the country’s penal system. Loosely inspired by a Dostoevsky short story, A Gentle Creature depicts an unnamed woman’s (Vasilina Makovtseva) attempt to visit her husband in prison. After the package sent to him comes back marked "return to sender", the woman goes to the prison to find out what happened. She soon discovers that getting an answer is not an easy task, nor is finding out where her husband is. Her quest to find the facts becomes a Kafkaesque journey through a Russian society where the truth is elusive. Each step towards finding an answer takes her further into the underbelly of a place where fact, fiction and fantasy are all indistinguishable.

A Gentle Creature is only Loznitsa’s third fictional feature after My Joy and In the Fog, although he has directed more than a dozen documentary features and shorts such as Maidan and The Event. In A Gentle Creature, he brings his sharp documentary eye in depicting the details of the prison system while smartly embracing elements of fiction, satire and even opera in crafting the film. The end result is a film that is essential viewing for our contemporary times!

Awards
Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2017 - Nominated (Asia Pacific Screen Award, Best Film | Marianne Slot, Valentina Mikhalyova, Galina Sementsova, Lev Karakhan, Gunnar Dedio, Uljana Kim, Peter Warnier, Serge Lavrenyuk, Marc van Warmerdam)
Cannes Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Palme d'Or | Sergei Loznitsa)
Munich Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (ARRI/OSRAM Award, Best International Film | Sergei Loznitsa)

A Gentle Creature is the fourth selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.