The Fool Durak

Dima Nikitin is a simple plumber, an honest man from a small Russian town. One night, he receives a call that the pipes have burst at a dorm inhabited mainly by drunkards and outcasts. After arriving at the scene, Nikitin discovers that things are way more serious – the building will not stand through the night. People need to be evacuated immediately. But nobody cares about a bunch of social undesirables. Guided by his moral conscience, Dima takes on the full gamut of indifferent and corrupt bureaucrats to convince them to take action.

A heart-rending portrait of contemporary Russian society, spotlighting an ordinary individual taking a stand against an entire system of corrupt city officials to save the lives of social outcasts.

“My film represents most of Russian life. Not the past, but the models of human relations that have existed for hundreds of years in Russia. /.../  My film’s character is pragmatic, but he has a moral code. Russian politics is based on lies, and the character is not affected by this social disease. Thank God these people exist to give us this high example of truth. We need such people.” (Yury Bykov)

Yury Bykov
Born in Novomichurinsk, Russia, in 1981, Yury Bykov graduated in acting from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in 2005. A year later, he started to direct short films and write screenplays. His second feature film, The Major, made the selection for the Critics’ Week of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. His latest film, The Fool, was recently nominated for a Golden Leopard at the 2014 Locarno Film Festival.