Courier

Karen Shakhnazarov, 1986; 88m

Adapted by Aleksandr Borodyansky from a novel written by director Karen Shakhnazarov, Courier was one of the first films to explore the effects of the Glasnost and Perestroika eras on everyday Soviet families. After graduating from high school, Ivan Miroshnikov fails the entrance exams for the higher education institutes. As he waits for the inevitable, a call-up into the army, he lands a job as an office courier, making deliveries for a new magazine, Questions of Cognition. He meets Katya, the daughter of a leading intellectual, and both the job and the new relationship encourage Ivan to imagine a different future for himself. Courier was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 1987 Moscow International Film Festival.

by Richard Pena