Dust

Alexei is twenty-four, works at a toy factory, lives with his grandmother, and is overweight and unremarkable. One day men from the security service come to his door and ask him to take part in an experiment. In it he steps inside a machine and for a moment sees himself as somebody else entirely: slim, handsome, strong. Then the experiment ends and that version of him is gone. Alexei wants the image back. He goes looking for the scientists, and nobody will tell him what happened. Sergei Loban directs the Russian film; a hundred and seven minutes, with Alexei Podolsky as Alexei and Pyotr Mamonov as the scientist. It was shot on digital video for very little money. It became one of the notable pieces of Russian independent cinema in 2005 and spread mostly over the internet.