“Kommunalka” observes life in a communal flat in Saint Petersburg.  This mode of life that is so closely linked to Russia’s Soviet past nonetheless remains a common phenomenon.  Nowadays, some 90,000 flats are shared due to the ongoing economic crisis.  This is more than just communal life – it is life at close quarters.

By focusing on the different inhabitants, the film takes a look at everyday life in this type of flat and at the particular human relationships that develop in such living conditions.  A communal flat is a space people share only because they have no other choice.  A place in which people generally know nothing about each other; a sealed-off space that serves as a backdrop against which the contradictions of the human condition and those within Russian culture and society in these times of great change are exposed and explode.