Black.White.Red.

This was part of the 2024 competition at the BUT Film Festival in Breda and won the Feature Film Award. After a somewhat overlong intro in grainy black and white, the film tightens it´s grip as latex-masked drug courier Eris (Alyona Konstantinova) seduces criminal club owner Chemkar (Malik Blumenthal) into his first trip with the wonder drug "Flashback".

Flashback brings memories back to life, and not just the beautiful ones. From then on, a black journey of the soul unfolds in a stylish alternation between delirious colors and atmospheric black and white, and a score between percussive electronics and a kind of "Satan's opera". Along the way, fetish eroticism and science fiction lie alongside horror and pulp elements.

Guided by the shape-shifting Eris, Chemkar wanders through an unreal, dazzling Russian nightlife in which he becomes entangled in his criminal intrigues and is driven by visions of his childhood. The loose narrative is constantly interwoven with coded references to Russia's war.

For me, the highlight was the incredible opera scene with a "battle of the divas" that leads to the finale, in which the loose strands of the dreamlike narrative are cruelly interwoven.

Misogynistic Chemkar is not a sympathetic character, but his childhood alter ego radiates enough innocent charisma to put his cold brutality into perspective. And don´t worry: finally, at the end, Chemkar gets what he deserves.