Sisters

Sisters (Syostry, 2001) is a lean Russian crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. It marked the directing debut of Sergei Bodrov Jr., and it follows two half-sisters who share an apartment, a dangerous father figure, and almost nothing else but contempt for each other.

Sveta is thirteen, abandoned by her dad and dirt poor, a sharp shot who dreams of joining the army as a sniper. Dina is eight, a pampered violin student adored by her gangster father. When that father falls into debt with the wrong men, they come hunting for the younger girl — and Sveta is left dragging her spoiled little sister across the city, sleeping in borrowed rooms and making choices no child should have to make.

Bodrov cast newcomer Oksana Akinshina, whose prickly, guarded Sveta carries the whole picture. Familiar faces like Andrei Krasko and Alexander Bashirov turn up in small parts, and Bodrov himself takes a brief cameo. At barely eighty minutes the film wastes nothing — a hard, unsentimental story that slowly warms into something tender as the two girls become real family. Stream Sisters (2001) online on iFILM.