Exodus 2019

Directed by Nikolay Nasedkin

There are different ways of casting away stones and gathering stones together. The artist Felix Buch puts up his sculptures of stones in Moscow streets. Their outlines suggest human figures tensely walking somewhere and at the same time waiting for some revelation. To him this is the essence of Exodus. Once a biblical legend, the image of the Hebrew people who escaped Egyptian captivity for an uncertain future has long become a universal metaphor. The writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya believes that the Exodus theme is very important in Russia today because “the seventy years of Soviet rule were a stunning exodus from one country that had gone out of control (the Russian Empire) on to a new country that failed (the Soviet Union)”. That “exodus” remained incomplete. Felix Buch is an artist, not a philosopher. Arranging stone figures in Moscow streets becomes a sort of happening, and this film gives viewers an opportunity to take part in this artistic improvisation.