I Won’t Come Back opens Minsk’s Listapad-2014 International Film Festival

I Won’t Come Back, directed by Estonian Ilmar Raag, and co-produced by Russia, Estonia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Finland, opens Minsk’s Listapad-2014 International Film Festival

Critics compare the film to the works of Alexey Balabanov, greatly admired by the Estonian producer. The plot follows smart and beautiful graduate Anya (Polina Pushkaruk), aged 23, who has grown up in a children’s home, and now teaches literature at university. She is accused of drug distribution so, taking advantage of her youthful appearance, returns to the orphanage. There, she encounters young Kristina (Victoria Lobacheva), and the pair go on the run: the first from wrongful persecution and the second to find her grandmother in Kazakhstan. Their journey marks a new beginning for Anya…

The film is directed by Sergey Selyanov and the script is co-authored by Oleg Gaza and Yaroslava Pulinovich (who studied under Nikolay Kolyada). Critics are calling Yaroslava a ray of light for the world of the silver screen.

The Director of Listapad-2014, Igor Sukmanov, explains that he chose the film to open the festival because of it being jointly produced by CIS and Baltic States countries — including contributions by Belarusfilm Studio. Meanwhile, I Won’t Come Back is a good example of melodrama and has already received the Nora Ephron Prize at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York (USA), and the Professional Achievement Award at the Andrei Tarkovsky International Mirror Film Festival (Russia).