Thawed Carp

Elena Mikhailovna, who spent a working life at the only school in a provincial town, lives modestly in retirement. When she is given a fatal diagnosis she does not wait for it; she starts arranging her own funeral, to make things easier for her son, whom she has not seen in five years because Oleg works in the capital and never has time for her. In the middle of these preparations someone gives her an enormous carp. She tries to kill it in the freezer, the fish refuses to die, and that stubbornness gives her back the will to live. Vladimir Kott treats death as a task to be organised and finds the comedy there. Marina Neyolova leads; Alisa Freindlich returned to the screen for this film and won a Golden Eagle for the part. It took the audience prize at the Moscow film festival.