Fragile

Khrupkiy / Fragile / Хрупкий, RU, 2025, 60´, language: Russian, English subtitles

 

A documentary about a secret performance art festival taking place in Russia from 2024.

In early 2024, the first performance art festival Хрупкий (Khrupkiy,Fragile) took place in Russia. It was originally supposed to be a public project. After the prosecutor banned the second edition of the festival, its curators hold it covertly: without promo and posts on social networks. Information about the festival is only shared by those who trust each other.

This film documented the 4th Khrupkiy held in Moscow in February 2025. The film is not so much about the festival as about everything around it. The characters are not only the festival convenors, but also its participants, the photographer, the spectators. Director Yegor Isayev spent a day with each of them – before, during and after the festival.

Who is coming to the underground theatre festival in Moscow in 2025? What is Khrupkiy to themm? In what context of the city, country and the world is the festival taking place? And what remains after Khrupkiy ends?

Directed by: Yegor Isayev; screenplay: Yegor Isaev, Oleg Tsiplakov; editor: Oleg Tsiplakov; camera: Yegor Isayev; assistants: Oleg Rybenko, Sash Maduyev

About the authors

Yegor Isaev graduated from the Moscow Film School in 2019 in directing (under Alexei Popogrebsky and Boris Khlebnikov). Over the years, he has received scholarships from the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Open Society University Network and the STIBET-DAAD programme. As an independent documentary filmmaker, he has worked with Mediazona, Current Time TV, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Vot-Vot. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Redkollegia Independent Journalism Award. His films have featured at Artdocfest, Flahertiana and other festivals. He taught directing and film production at the Moscow School of Economics, European Humanities University in Vilnius and Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Filmography – selection: Teenagers and Kittens (2021), The Ceremony (2019), Home (2024), Farewell to Alexei Navalny. Chronicle of a Funeral (2024), Drugs, Hobbies and Fear. Almanac (2025)

 

Oleg Tsiplakov is a documentary filmmaker and journalist from Siberia, studying (La Sapienza University in Rome) and living in Italy.

Filmography: Net Weight (2019), Artyom Tomilov (2024)