A prodigal son among thieves, bandits, lovers, and ghosts, in a world where honour and morals blur.

Ukraine after the annexation. Haunted and reckless, Mykhailo returns to bury his father, only to discover that the old man has effectively been a ghost for 20 years. Like Schrödinger’s cat, he seems ready to reappear at any moment.

Mykhailo drifts through encounters with old friends, lost loves and new, crooked allies who punish the slightest misstep. He is torn between Nina, a gentle single mother, and Alina, a tattooed ballet dancer. His presence seems almost cursed. Victor, a former killer and torturer, stalks him relentlessly with an empty gun, while a faded Olympic trampoline jumper clings to memories of Soviet glory and may have been the last to see Mykhailo’s father alive. Even the city’s honourable bandits want him gone.

This slow-burning, suspenseful, and philosophical film noir brings together Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Georgian actors, with a deus ex machina appearance by Aleksas Kazanavičius (“Ulya”). In a labyrinth of secrets, betrayals, affairs, and blackmail, nothing is quite what it seems. Sometimes, dogs remember they were always wolves.

Edvinas Pukšta