Border

Autumn 2022. Mobilisation is announced and a young man tries to leave Russia for Kazakhstan, but at passport control a draft notice closes his exit. Rather than turn back he settles into a cheap border-town hostel, to wait and to watch.

Around him are the others who are stranded: young men inventing grandmothers in Kazakhstan, the broke and the frightened, and one roommate already hollowed out by the war he came back from. When that man’s trauma erupts into violence in the night, Petya makes his decision and runs for the border.

A quiet, documentary-grained drama shot in France in Russian. We took the film on in June 2026 and built its festival route from the world premiere onward.