Zerograd

Zerograd (1988) is a Soviet absurdist comedy-drama by Karen Shakhnazarov — watch it online on iFILM. A Moscow engineer named Vasilyev arrives in a remote provincial city to resolve a routine work issue. Within hours, a pastry chef presents him with a cake shaped like his own head. That is the first sign something is badly off.

The city operates by its own rules. Police open a case on events that never happened. Local history turns out to be a patchwork of contradictions. Everyone is calm, polite, and utterly immovable. Leonid Filatov plays Vasilyev with escalating quiet panic, surrounded by Oleg Basilashvili, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and Yevgeny Yevstigneyev populating a world of cheerful unreason.

Made during the late Soviet thaw, the film reads today as a precise map of bureaucratic surrealism — a place where following every rule somehow makes everything worse. It divided critics on release and still does. Watch Zerograd online on iFILM.