This Oscar-nominated film opens with an absurd act: stealing a door. Then, what had seemed an absurd act turns into a simple statement of human dignity, of people making sense of loss through ritual. THE DOOR reflects on the fact that it is based on someone's testimony. Images are impressionistic, haunting, like fragments of memories which the viewer must piece together. Although the main character, Nikolai, gives us the facts, he himself is trying...

LIOMPA, based on the 1928 short story by Russian Soviet novelist Yuri Olesha, explores the relationship between an individual and the things that he owns or desires to own throughout his life. The film looks at this relationship from the perspective of three people at different stages: a dying man, a teenage boy and a four-year-old. The gorgeously crafted short film, a crowd favorite at the Toronto International Film Festival, was directed, and adapted...