The Hanging

Nineteen-year-old Kirill is fearless. He and his friends hang out on the rooftops of apartment buildings, where his brazen stunts have earned him the nickname “Russian Spiderman.” But it seems that his carefree existence as a leading figure in Moscow’s “roofing” culture will soon be over. Kirill has dropped out of Russia’s top engineering university, and the unintended consequences will confront him with the one thing he does fear. The Kirill we get to know, as we climb with him to rooftops and hear stories from his friends, sees roofing as a way to find himself. We also see him in his room, with his model of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, or chatting with friends about his interests. The photos of him posing nonchalantly on top of Moscow skyscrapers are breathtaking. As Kirill hangs in the void between youthful freedom and adult responsibility, he says he isn’t driven by emptiness, but by his own independent-minded ambition and desire for freedom.