Yarik (film)

A boy of five or six named Yarik on the night of December 30–31, 2006, comes with his mother to Moscow to visit his dad, who works at a “large construction site”. For some unknown reason, dad does not meet them, because of which Yarik and mother have to sleep at the station.

Mom leaves Yarik a bag with things and leaves to buy pies. At first the boy is waiting for her, but then begins to worry. A passenger named Arkady takes care of Yarik and shares food with him. A full Yarik falls asleep. While he sleeps, someone steals the bag left by his mother. Waking up, Yarik decides that his mother took the bag. But she did not come.

Without money, Yarik can’t get into the paid toilet, runs away from the station to the street and, getting lost, finds himself in the subway. A random passenger notices a little boy without adults and hands him over to a policeman. He takes Yarik to the department, where in the “monkey” sits a card cheater Boris, detained for street drinking. The police listen to the story of Yarik about the lost mother, but do not show enthusiasm and desire to help.

Boris tries to amuse Yarik with card tricks, casually takes out his business card and gold watch and secretly hands it to Yarik. This is noticed by the policeman and pounces on the baby, trying to take it away. Boris provokes the policeman to call the guard, and the detainee is brutally beaten, but Yarik manages to escape. A little later, Major Kultyga came to the department and asked to find Yarik, who for some reason he needed.

All day, December 31, 2006, Yarik wanders through the streets of Moscow, trying to independently get food or at least keep warm. In the evening, a woman in a store buys Yarik cookies and a bottle of soda water, and then takes them to the address indicated on Boris's business card. Yarik finds an apartment, but Boris is not at home. Yarik arranged to wait for him at the entrance to the battery. Here he picks up a homeless kitten and gives him the nickname Murzik.

Boris finds Yarik in the stairwell and invites him. At home, he bathes the child, changes clothes and feeds. They celebrate the new year 2007, and tired Yarik goes to bed.

On the morning of January 1, 2007, a wife and daughter come to Boris. The wife scolds Boris for Yarik in the apartment, and the boy runs away. Boris rushes after him, puts him in a car and takes him to the station to look for his mother, but on the way, unable to resist the temptation, he turns into a gambling club, where, according to friends, a certain gentleman offers a game for big money.

While Boris plays cards, Yarik rises from boredom into the rest room, where the bodyguards of the Lord are sitting. They have fun with the baby: they let them hold a real gun, they learn to play cards, they drink beer and argue with each other for money, how the child will behave. But one of the guards puts $ 50 won into Yarik’s pocket.

Not waiting for Boris to finish the game, Yarik leaves the club and on the way gets to the station, giving the driver $ 50. In the waiting room of the Kazan station, he sits in the same chair where he sat yesterday. He is recognized by Captain Samokhin, who already saw Yarik yesterday. After listening to the story of the missing mother, the captain clarifies her name and surname, after which she leads Yarik to the duty unit. It turns out that his mother bought a cheese sandwich yesterday, slipped on the edge of the platform in the crowd and fell under the train. Yarik sees the dead mother in a photograph among the case materials.

Yarik spends some time in the bullpen with an elderly Armenian named Gurgen, who was detained for living without registration. Gurgen consoles Yarik, tells him: "Snow cannot go forever, the sun will someday peer out." Then Captain Samokhin takes Yarik to the children's reception, which is led by Major Kultiga. At the reception, Yarika is examined by a nurse with the rank of junior police sergeant, and Major Kultyga says that he will take him to dad, but dad is very far away, and you need to fly there by plane. Yarik is imbued with hope, not suspecting what fate awaits him.

Meanwhile, the gentleman wins all the money from Boris and in passing drops the phrase that “now children are even being dismantled for parts like stolen cars”. Boris understands the danger that threatens Yarik and goes to the station. Samokhin for a bribe tells what happened to his mother and where now Yarik. But in the receiver, the major and the nurse are deceiving Boris: the major says that Yarik escaped, and the nurse that his mother took. Kultig has already managed to transfer Yarik to the courier, the buyer, and now carries fake passports to them. However, Boris recognizes Kultigu, as he saw him yesterday in the "monkey", and goes after him to Sheremetyevo .

Boris does not manage to save Yarik - the airport police will not let him passport control. In the parking lot, Boris catches up with the major. Between them there is a fight, during which Kultiga wounds Boris with a pistol. Airport police detain the major. Wounded Boris is crying. A plane with Yarik and a courier buyer on board takes off.

Closed Finals

In Vienna, Yarik finds himself in a private medical center, where he unsuccessfully tells his story to foreign doctors. In the final episode, Yarik is taken to the operating room.

Open Finals

Major of the FSB Vera Sergeevna Ilyina learns about the fight between Kultigi and the card cheater Boris at the airport. Kultyga tried to imagine the conflict as an attempt to steal a car, but, having listened to the version of Boris, Vera Sergeevna was wary: the car thief would not have compiled the story of the abduction and removal of a child abroad for organ transplantation. In the video from the airport’s surveillance cameras, one of her assistants recognizes in a courier who is a buyer previously convicted of black transplantology and released for lack of evidence. Vera Sergeevna orders to contact the Vienna airport, and she first calls the interpol , and then personally to the Russian ambassador in Austria and explains the situation. In Vienna and in the interpolation, they are ready to assist, but Yarik and the kidnapper are already half an hour in the air, their plane lands in twenty minutes.

Further, the viewer sees Yarik on the plane; wounded Boris, who returned to his daughter and wife; Gurgen, still sitting in the bullpen, and the cat Murzik, whom Boris's wife allowed to keep. Twenty minutes later, Vera Sergeevna’s cell phone rings, but this is a call from her daughter. The conversation with the daughter of Ilyin ends with the words: “We will be in time, I give the word!”

In both versions, the film completes the inscription: “Every year, thousands of children are exported from Russia. The fate of many of them is unknown. ”

• Maxim Kolesnikov ^[4] - Yarik
• Elena Ksenofontova - Elena Zakharova, mother of Yarik .
• Anatoly Bely - Boris
• Inna Moskvichyova - wife of Boris
• Polina Arsentieva - daughter of Boris
• Dmitry Persin - Major Kultyga
• Anna Ukolova - police nurse
• Armen Dzhigarkhanyan - Gurgen
• Mikhail Gorevoy - Buyer
• Sergey Badichkin - Captain Samokhin
• Sergey Khrustalyov - Dmitry, policeman
• Sergey Veksler - Mr.
• Alyona Yakovleva - FSB Major Vera Sergeevna Ilyina (in the open final)
  

• Alexey Shadkhin , Konstantin Isaev - Mr’s bodyguards
• Sergey Guryev , Denis Bespaly - friends of Boris
• Vladimir Dolinsky - Arkady, passenger
• Ulyana Chilindina - a girl in a bakery (in the credits of Ulyana Frolova)
• Ekaterina Lapina
• Natalia Garanina
• Alexey Medvedev
• Denis Serdyukov

• Directors: Alexander Laszlo, Cecile Henry
• Screenplay: Andrei Scherbinin (with the participation of Cecile Henry)
• Operators: Alexander Gusev, Irina Uralskaya, Ekaterina Dubrovskaya, Alexander Laslo
• Composer: Vadim Shcherbakov, Yaroslav Gordeev
• Production Designer: Sergey Filenko
• Producers: Dmitry Sazhin, Konstantin Serebryakov

Alexander Laszlo (b. July 11, 1967, Leningrad ) - composer and film director . He graduated from the College of Music. Rimsky-Korsakov at the conservatory oboe class. Lives and works in St. Petersburg.

Cecile Henri is a film director. Born May 4, 1971 in Paris (France). She graduated from the University of Paris X - Nanterre . She defended her thesis on political sociology on the topic “Soviet Communism”. In the past, she was a French theater actress, she studied at GITIS, and since 1998 lives mainly in Moscow. Having lived for some time in Moscow, Henri began working with Project WE, and then with Laszlo.

According to Cecile Henri, “All the main creators of the film are debutants - I myself, the main actor, screenwriter and general producer. We watched over 500 children before we found the lead actor Maxim Kolesnikov. Searched for six months. And they found, thanks to the official who gave us advice. Although we did not want to initially invite a child from the orphanage to the main role. It so happened that Maxim starred in the film, where he had the role of a mother, and found a mother in life. He even said to actress Elena Ksenofontova: “Until recently, I did not have a mother, and now two at once.” All our actors, the whole group worked at a low rate, because we had very little money. There were also those who did not take risks and act in films, the fate of which was unknown. ”

• On December 11, 2007, the film was presented in the program “Cinema for the Protection of the Rights of the Child”, organized jointly with UNICEF in the framework of the XIII Stalker International Film Festival on Human Rights.
• On December 18, 2007, the film was shown in the Our Children program of the 24th Moscow International Film Festival for Children and Youth.
• On July 19, 2008 the film was shown in the program of the IV Sevastopol International Film Festival.
• On August 2, 2008, the film was shortlisted by the Russian Academy Award nomination.
• Yarik received the Grand Prix of the III International Film Festival of Family and Children's Films “Faithful Heart” (October 20-26, Moscow, 2008).
• The film was included in the program of feature films "Adults about Children" of the Minsk International Film Festival " Leaf Fall " (2008).
• On December 8, 2008, the film was presented at the IV International Forum “Russian Film” (December 7-18, Israel, 2008).
• The film became the Laureate of the XVII St. Petersburg International Film Festival "Festival of Festivals" (June 23-29, St. Petersburg, 2009) and received the prize "Bronze Griffin" - for the best experimental film.

• Official site at ruskino.ru
• Unofficial site (inaccessible link)