BEANPOLE

antemir Balagov’s debut feature (2017) garnered significant attention on the festival circuit, for reasons both positive and negative. Primarily a look at an insular Jewish community in a small town in the north Caucasus, the film institutes a tragedy that tests the bonds of immediate versus extended family. Centring at first on a young woman, Ilana (Darya Zhovner), who defies her parents and years of tradition by having fallen in love with a boy who isn’t Jewish (Nazir Zhukov), deceptively appears to be yet another iteration of . In fact, Ilana’s story is sidelined when her brother David (Veniamin Katz) and his fiancée are kidnapped and held for an exorbitant ransom. Ilana and David’s par-ents go to neighbours, friends, and the Jewish elders for monetary help, but there is