THE YEAR OF THE DOG

Talk about your star-crossed lovers! Sergei, an embittered and sometimes violent criminal, has just been released from prison. He meets a shy, middle-aged spinster named Vera and embarks on a bittersweet romance that quickly turns into a hellish affair. After Sergei stabs Vera's landlord in a dispute over his newfound girlfiriend, the couple flees to the countryside where they find refuge in an idyllic village. But the idyll turns our to be an illusion: the hamlet is on the outskirts of Chemobyl, contaminated with radiation and abandoned by its inhabitants. Violent events follow each other relentlessly and it's hard to escape the sense of doom that enshrouds the characters. THE YEAR OF THE DOG, winner of the Silver Bear at the 1994 berlin Film Festival, is a lyrical and ironic story which takes the “outlaw couple' theme and deepens its social implications. Inna Churikova, star of “Adam's Rib” (16th CIFF, 1992), proves herself once again to be one of the world's remarkable film actors.-San Francisco International Film Festival. In Russian with English subtitles.