On the edge of hope (1994)

The waiter sets the table, puts out a vase of flowers and cutlery, the waiter's face, dishes on trays.

The face of L. F. Lyashenko, who survived the siege of Leningrad.

Lyashenko in her room waiting for the festive dinner to begin, the waiter sets the table.

Neighbor M. Zonov puts a record on the record player.

Lyashenko's face, awards on her blouse.

The waiter sets the table.

Conversation between Lyashenko and Zonov, the set table.

Views of the streets of St.

Petersburg.

Elderly women stand at the iron gate.

View of the wall of the building (from bottom to top).

Production processes at a tobacco factory, making cigarettes.

Packets of cigarettes being packed into boxes.

A queue of elderly people begins to move.

Lyashenko and Zonov meet siege survivors D. S. Drozdova and I. I. Tsurkan at home, everyone sits down at the table.

Zonov introduces the women to each other.

The waiter's face.

Zonov begins to treat the guests.

Women who survived the siege recall their life in besieged Leningrad.

The participants of the feast celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad, drink champagne, make toasts, and engage in table talk.

Men drink beer from a bottle, standing on the steps of the stairs at the entrance to the store.

Faces of cadets of a military school, elderly women sell cigarettes from their hands on the street.

A man dances to music on the street.

A street singer performs "Katyusha", accompanying himself on an electric synthesizer.

Faces of people standing at the fence and listening to music (panorama), a man covers the camera lens with his hand.

The face of a waiter in Lyashenko's apartment.

Zonov talks with the women of the siege at the table, the women share memories of their life in besieged Leningrad.

The beam of a film projector from a projection booth.

The facade of the Baltika cinema building, broken glass, a Russian flag is attached to the corner, street trading of vegetables in front of the entrance to the cinema.

People and transport on the streets of St.

Petersburg, a police officer is on duty near a bench with a corpse sitting on it, covered with polyethylene.

Street trading on the sidewalk.

Women who survived the siege, sitting at a table, recall their life and work in besieged Leningrad, talk about cases of cannibalism (synchronously).

Cooks in the kitchen prepare lunch for the free canteen.

Elderly people sit in line in the corridor for coupons for a free lunch.

One of the women receives coupons.

Elderly people are having lunch at tables.

An elderly woman eats from a plate, standing at the distribution counter.

Women who survived the siege at the table share memories, discuss Pugacheva's work, criticize her and political figures (synchronously).

The face of a girl. F. Kirkorov and A. Pugacheva in the back seat of a wedding car.

Elderly people watching TV in a nursing home.

Faces of elderly people.

A woman walks down the hallway of a nursing home, her hand turning over the date on the calendar.

Kirkorov and Pugacheva are riding in a car.

Lyashenko and her interlocutors at the table talk about Vasilievsky Island, where she lived her entire life, reflects on her past life and loneliness (synchronously).

Zonov and the women who survived the siege fill their glasses with champagne and drink.

Newsreel of the winter of 1941-1942: a view of one of the streets of Leningrad, littered with snowdrifts, a man walking down the street.

People exhausted from hunger and dead people on the streets of the city.

Residents of Leningrad take buckets of water from an ice hole in the Neva.

A seller cuts a loaf of bread into portions.

Weighing the daily ration of bread on scales.

People lift a woman who has fallen from hunger.

The face of a woman exhausted by hunger.

A page from Tanya Savicheva's diary.

Children pull a coffin on a sled past a statue of the Sphinx.

A view of part of Nevsky Prospect, a woman pulls a coffin on a sled to a cemetery.

People pull coffins with the bodies of relatives who died of hunger on sleds along the streets of Leningrad.

Women who survived the siege eat and talk while sitting at a table.

Refreshments on the table (panorama).

Women at the table discuss the attitude of modern youth to people who survived the siege, about their attachment to Vasilievsky Island (synchronously and off-screen).

The interiors of a communal apartment in St.

Petersburg.

Zonov's wife gives an interview about her neighbors at the stove in the communal kitchen (synchronously), invites her daughter Masha to come over.

Zonov performs a song with a guitar, women who survived the siege listen to him.

Panorama of the Neva and buildings on the embankments in the central part of St.

Petersburg, a statue of a sphinx.

A girl plays the violin, standing on a stone balcony of an old building.

Views of one of the courtyards of St.

Petersburg, teenagers rummaging in a trash bin.

Circular panorama of the walls of a house from a well-yard.

Teenagers running away along the roofs.

Debris from children's toys on the roof.

Panorama of a part of a city block in the central part of St.

Petersburg (from above).

A waiter lights candles.

Zonov puts a record on the turntable.

Women and Zonov's daughter Masha listen to music sitting at a table, the waiter clears the table.

Women, Masha and Zonov drink tea.

Masha's face.

A record on the turntable.

Zonov invites Lyashenko to dance.

Masha drinks tea.

Dancing Lyashenko and Zonov.

The faces of Drozdova and Tsurkan.

Illuminated advertising on one of the buildings of night St.

Petersburg.

Views of Nevsky Prospect illuminated by lights.