Introduction:

The film, set in a north-western industrial town in Russia, reveals the mechanism that entices human beings to voluntarily become a resource to the state. Can a person ever be free in a totalitarian society, where intricate and obscure structures take control of their mind-set from an early age? The film looks at the making of a Russian citizen from a fresh angle. The director’s subtle but demanding look reveals “the system” at work in the most benign-looking situations, in all aspects of the everyday. What happens to people’s free will and self-determination in such conditions? The film is a Nietzschean treat, asking the core existential question: is a human being ever born free?