Provincial Russian in the midst of the “Wild Nineties”. Thirteen-year-old Masha (a stunning turn from Polina Gukhman) dreams of becoming a jazz singer, while her gangster friends terrorise their hometown. Years later in Moscow, she realises that she cannot outrun her past. In her award-winning directorial debut, veteran screenwriter Anastasiya Palchikova draws on personal experience to delve into her country’s gritty recent past, reimagining the coming-of-age movie as a fight to the death and balancing harsh home truths with wicked humour.