The Stairway 1989

In a cramped Leningrad communal apartment on Pushkinskaya Street, 17, the story follows Vladimir Piroshnikov, who plans to end his life by leaping from a bridge. A passing woman, Alya, stops him and carries him to her home, setting off a sequence that tests reality itself.

The next morning, Vladimir Piroshnikov wakes in the empty studio of Alya’s neighbor, a space belonging to the sculptor Kirill. When he tries to leave, he discovers a staircase that seems to go on forever, bending the ordinary rules of space and leaving him in a state of uneasy wonder.

Seeking Alya’s help, he learns he is not the first to stumble into this phenomenon. Alya reveals that her former partner escaped by cheating on her and slipping out through the window of her neighbor, Larisa Pavlovna, which opens directly to the street, a route that defies normal boundaries.

As Vladimir attempts to escape using a rope from the fifth floor, Alya’s uncle, Mikhail, arrives from Tula and mistakes him for a thief, stepping in to intervene with a protective, if suspicious, urgency. The scene is watched by another neighbor, Granny Nyura, whose quiet, observant presence from her own apartment adds a steady counterpoint to the surreal unfoldings.

Persistently trying to break free, Vladimir climbs onto the roof, where a fleeting rush of freedom alternates with danger. He slips, nearly falls, and manages to grab a shaky ledge just as the camera lingers on the uncertain edge of the world, leaving the fate of his escape deliberately unclear and open to interpretation.