On December 29, the online premiere of Oksana Bychkova's scandalous film 'Nina' took place, which quarreled the director of the cult 'Piter FM' with the producer, but at the same time managed to remain an interesting project for artistic reasons.

A midnight call. Nina (Yulia Peresild) picks up the phone, and on the other end, her former lover Ruslan (Evgeny Tsyganov) tells her that he is terminally ill and would like to see her one last time. Despite the circumstances – Nina is married, has a child, and lives in Moscow – she sets off for Tbilisi.

The situation is reckless, but both Nina and her husband take it rather matter-of-factly. And just as matter-of-factly, the girl's first meeting with Ruslan takes place in a close but still foreign Georgia. Then begins a series of walks, conversations, acquaintances, dances, glasses of wine – all against the backdrop of colorful Tbilisi.

At some point, it might even seem like you're watching the good old 'Piter FM' – the same Tsyganov on screen, the same couple that seems close but far apart. Only instead of St. Petersburg rap, Georgian motifs sound in the frame.

But this impression, though strong, is not entirely accurate. 'Nina' is more like 'Lost in Translation'. And it's not even about the characters being in another country, but about how they convey that loneliness, which fades into the background in those few moments when they can just dance and look at the night city.

Nina, like Bill Murray's character in Coppola's film, feels like a stranger everywhere and at home nowhere. And this feeling inevitably leads to tragedy.

Director Oksana Bychkova, working with a subtle but seemingly undercooked script by Lyubov Mulmenko (the clunky finale will clearly leave you with unanswered questions), focuses on details, on the atmosphere of city walks.

In domestic cinema, there hasn't been such a smooth immersion into the mood of a film for a long time, thanks to the natural camera of Mikhail Khursevich, which deceives with its simplicity but advantageously highlights all the beauties, thanks to mumble dialogues without much meaning but not devoid of nerve.

Returning to the 'strange' finale, one cannot ignore the media hype raised by director Oksana Bychkova and producer Ekaterina Filippova, who exchanged mutual reproaches and said that Bychkova did not participate in the final edit of the film. As is usual in such cases, we will not know the truth, but the fact is that the film obviously looks slightly unfinished. But even a certain abruptness should not be misleading – watching 'Nina' is interesting and to a certain extent pleasant.

Trailer: