Sisters

Sisters (Russian: Сёстры) is a 2001 Russian crime film directed by Sergei Bodrov, Jr. It is notable as being his first and only film as director due to his death while filming his second film the year after. It was awarded Grand Prix for the Best Debut at the 2001 Kinotavr film festival.

Plot
Sveta (Oksana Akinshina) and Dina (Katya Gorina) are two half-sisters. Dina is spoiled and lives with her mother Natalia (Tatiana Kolganova) and father Alik (Roman Ageyev), who is a mid-ranking gangster, while Sveta lives with her grandma (Tatyana Tkach) in a more humble existence and wishes to be a sniper in the Russian Army.

Upon Alik's release from prison after doing some time for a robbery, some of his old associates demand him to pay them back some money he allegedly owes. When he refuses, they attempt to kidnap the two girls to try to intimidate him to give them the money. However they manage to escape, and go on the run from the mob through semi-rural Russia while their father attempts to sort affairs with the other gangsters.

Alik Murtazaev, an authoritative thief and bandit, is released from prison. In the wild, his wife Natalia, daughter Dina and stepdaughter of Light are waiting for him. Girls, due to differences in characters and age (Dina - 8 years old, and Sveta - 13), can not find a common language.

Instead of a cordial meeting, Murtazaev receives a charge from former accomplices and associates. After the arrest, the common fund was seized from him, the loss of which he now must compensate. The bandits threaten to abduct Dean if he does not return the money. Murtazaev does not consider himself obligated to return anything, but for security reasons he hides children in a strange apartment, instructing Sveta to look after Dina.

The shelter turns out to be unreliable, and the sisters, without warning their parents, hastily hide from the bandits who came to the apartment in the evening. Having left for the region by train, the girls find themselves in the wilderness without a roof over their heads. Relatives of the mother refuse to shelter them, fearing bandits. They live for a couple of days at the dacha of the parents of Sveta’s friend, Lesha, but someone sets the house on fire in their absence (having asked to live, the girls climbed into the wrong house and Leshina the dacha remained unharmed). The girls are forced to fight and live with gypsies until they themselves come to the police with a request to take them to their parents, supposedly they are lost. It immediately becomes clear that the parents left a statement for the search, but bandits arrive on the call. Having learned about the attempted abduction, the policeman hides the girls from his friend, the alcoholic Seifullin. Sveta gets sick. Dina goes to the pharmacy and meets Aunt Zoya, her mother’s sister, and tells her her current whereabouts. The bandits track down the policeman and, having killed him, again go on the trail of the girls. In turn, Murtazaev, having arrived at the arrow about the return of the common fund, successfully avoids being shot and after that he hastily finds the children, one step ahead of the competing bandits. In the shootout, the bandits and Seyfullin die, and the girls are saved.

The Murtazaev family, breaking away from the persecution for a while, leaves for Austria for permanent residence. Light remains. Girls who have become close as a result of the hardships endured together, part with pain.

When you are eight years old, the whole world is against you. When you are thirteen years old, it's you against the whole world.

Some believe that Sisters is the unofficial third entry in the Brother film series. Besides the title and the criminal themes, all three feature Sergei Bodrov Jr. onscreen: in Sisters he appears as a possibly mob-connected New Russian. In his last interview Bodrov confirmed that this was indeed a cameo of his Danila character from the Brother films, his way of "saying hello to Balabanov" rather than an attempt to continue the story.

Cast

 * Oksana Akinshina as Svetlana "Sveta" Malakhov
 * Yekaterina Gorina as Dinara "Dina" Murtazaeva
 * Roman Ageyevas Albert "Alik" Murtazaev (dubbed by Mikhail Razumovski)
 * Tatiana Kolganova as Natalia Murtazaeva
 * Dmitry Orlov as Aleksandr Palych, ment
 * Kirill Pirogov as a gangster who pursues the girls
 * Aleksandr Bashirov as Seifullin
 * Andrey Krasko as Misha
 * Sergei Bodrov, Jr. as guy from jeep