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Written and directed by Alexander Kaidanovsky (the star of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker 1979), the rarely-screened Kerosene Salesman's Wife is a dreamlike tale of twin surgeons on divergent paths in the final year of Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union. After a fatal mishap in the operating room, one brother takes the blame and is relegated to life as a lowly street seller of kerosene; meanwhile, the other brother ascends the ranks of the powerful city council. Kaidanovsky tells the story with rich visual invention, crafting ravishing and poetic vignettes that recall the oneiric beauty of Tarkovsky's Nostalghia 1983 or the great surrealist masterpieces of Polish cinema.

PG | Occasional violence