| 4 | |
| Director: | Ilya Khrzhanovsky |
| Producer: | Yelena Yatsura |
| Starring: | Marina Vovchenko Sergey Shnurov Yuri Laguta |
| Cinematography: | Sándor Berkesi Alexandre Ilkhovski Alisher Khamidkhodjaev |
| Editing: | Igor Malakhov |
| Distributor: | Filmocom Hubert Bals Fund |
| Runtime: | 126 minutes |
| Country: | Russia |
| Language: | Russian |
4 is a 2004 Russian drama film directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky after a screenplay by Vladimir Sorokin.[1] Originally it was conceived as a short film, but turned into a full-length film after four years of work.
Meat merchant Oleg, prostitute Marina, and piano tuner "simply Volodya" drop into an all-night bar in Moscow, where they are served by a narcoleptic bartender (three plus one is four) while each regales the others with made-up biographies. Oleg claims to work in President Putin's administration, supplying him with bottled water and his wife with liquor; Marina passes herself off as a marketing executive; and Volodya, the infamous lead singer of the rock group Leningrad, as a geneticist who clones twins (two times two makes four, again) in a laboratory that has been engaged in these experiments since the days of Stalin. After they separate, these fantasy realities, especially Volodya's, begin to dominate their everyday lives.
The film won the VPRO Tiger Award (shared with Daniele Gaglianone's Changing Destiny and Mercedes Álvarez's The Sky Turns) at the 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam.[2]