Poor Relatives
| Bednye Rodstvenniki | |
|---|---|
 A DVD cover with the film's Russian title: Бедные родственники | |
| Directed by | Pavel Lungin |
| Starring |
Konstantin Khabensky Sergei Garmash Marina Golub |
| Cinematography | Mikhail Krichman |
Release dates | 2005 |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
Bednye Rodstvenniki (Russian: Бедные родственники, Roots, Poor Relatives) is a 2005 comedy film, close in style to "The 12 chairs" and "The Small Golden Calf"; based on the novels by Ilya Ilf and Evgeniy Petrov.
Runaway award winner of the Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr", 2005.
The stars of the film include Russian actors Konstantin Khabensky and Sergei Garmash. Directed by Pavel Lungin.
Plot summary
Young con artist with a rather nice personality, Edik (Konstantin Khabensky) gets in trouble gathering long lost foreign relatives together. Wealthy and middle-class émigrés who have made it in the new lands (the Americas, Israel) return to the homeland, to the roots from which they were severed. The implicit motivation for their return is the search for spiritual nourishment, and so the émigrés sacrifice the material comforts of their villas and Western civilization to journey to their ancestral past, the timeless village of Golotvin. They believe that here they will be able to complete themselves by reconnecting with their heritage. All for the nominal fee of Edik, a free agent and a small time crook who orchestrates an elaborate crime with the intention of earning a pile of money by tricking a group of pilgrims into thinking that a small village is their homeland and its inhabitants are their long lost relatives. The levels of deception multiply quickly...