STRAY

Three years after the tragic disappearance of their only son Vanya, Polina and Igor decide to heal this incredible grief through adoption. While visiting the orphanage, they lose hope in finding the perfect child until they come upon a very special boy, an almost feral child who can only communicate in grunts and snarls. And yet Polina feels that she can protect and cherish this lost soul. Igor is less enthusiastic, but when he sees how much this means to Polina and the bond she creates with the stray child, they take him into their house. But when she decides to name him Vanya, Igor starts to feel uneasy. And it’s certainly not helping that the new kid is more and more starting to resemble their missing child. Olga Gorodetskaya delivers an ambitious debut that destroys our image of childhood innocence. Stray, the adaptation of a story by accomplished horror writer Anna Starobinets, winner of the 2018 European Science Fiction Award, is unsettling, nerve-wrecking and brilliant. The movie stars Elena Lyadova and Vladimir Vdovichenkov as Polina and Igor, two brilliant actors we discovered in LEVIATHAN!