Tsirk

Alexei Krugliakov is serious about being funny. At 25, he has finally found his vocation. After school he went to work in a dirty, sooty factory. When his national service came up, he was wounded by shrapnel as an army medic. But now he's studying to become a clown at the State School for Circus and Variety Arts, in Moscow. In Tsirk, Alexei is our guide to the school, a shabby relic of what was a vast Soviet circus system instituted to entertain the masses and spread propaganda. We meet other students and teachers... Committed and underpaid, the staff remember better, but less free, days - and have mixed hopes for the futures of the young people they teach.