Alexey German Jr. has become a regular on the Lido. Last year he picked up the Silver Lion award for his drama “Paper Soldier”. His short feature,“Kim”,is stylish, ambient and thoughtful. Although one might think German found his cinematic language once and forever, the young filmmaker says he’s always in search of a new “manner of speech.”

“I think any director should change their cinematic language. He should move on and reinvent himself all the time, ” German told RT after the premiere of “Crush” on the Lido.

“I’m a person who is very much dependent on images. It’s an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. It’s very important for me that any story I tell possess some artistic and imagery qualities of its own. When working on “Kim”, first and foremost I tried to find a location which would enrich the story by giving it extra layers of new meanings and connotations. We found such a place outside St. Petersburg where shooting took place.”

Ivan Dobronravov, screenshot from "Crush" film

German’s film is set in a mental hospital in the middle of nowhere on an island. Kim is a former circus artist and a new patient.

The main character in Pyotr Buslov’s drama is a deaf-and-dumb shoemaker who’s burning the midnight oil in a basement repair shop. One day he falls in love with a girl wearing white high-heels whose shoes need to be repaired. The boy clearly knows what it takes to literally love someone to death.

“Urgent Repair” by Buslov is only 20 minutes, but gives an impression that lingers for much longer. The film was met with thunderous applause on the Lido.

“The reaction from the public is vital. It’s important to be heard. Of course, you can always say you’re an artist and don’t care, but it’s not true. Only sitting in the cinema house with the public can you understand whether you’ve hit the target or not. It feels great when you’re understood.”

It seems that the story told by another Russian director, Boris Khlebnikov, also managed to appeal to the European audience at the Venice film festival. “Shame” focuses on a reporter whose first professional assignment is to write a story about a heating pipeline that was crushed in a block of flats. However, while working on the boring story he suddenly finds evidence of a different “crush” – a hopeless love affair between a boy and a girl living in the same yard…

Khlebnikov says he’s known of this story for a long time but never had a chance to bring it to the screen. “From the very beginning, it was designed to be a short film  – no longer than 20 minutes. If the film would be turned into a full-length feature, I’m sure it would spoil the whole picture.”

Based upon their response, this year it looks like film lovers in Venice have had a real crush on Russian filmmakers.

Valeria Paikova, RT