Travelling with Pets

Winner of the grand prize at this year's Moscow International Film Festival, Travelling with Pets begins as a couple hurries to fill a canister of milk to give to a passing train. The man makes his delivery but keels over. A strange look comes over the woman, Natalya, who seemingly had never imagined a life for herself beyond staying at this man's side. Over the course of this lyrical, poetic film, director Vera Storozheva and screenwriter Arkady Krasilshchikov imagine a number of possible lives for Natalya (beautifully played by Kseniya Kutepova) as she moves from dirt floors to flat-screen TVs. Storozheva worked as both an actress and a screenwriter for Kira Muratova, and the salutary influence of Muratova can be felt throughout the film: a similar use of a jagged, spiky rhythm to the narrative, a similarly opaque, often contradictory protagonist who never seems to know what she wants“but gets it anyway.

by Richard Pena