Anesthesia(Separation)
A nine-year-old boy overhears his surgeon father admit a mistake that may have cost a man his life. In a household where a broken thing must be hidden, or it destroys you, the boy learns to carry the secret the way adults do — and must decide whether to become like them.
Shortlisted — Young Director Award (Dream Pitch), Cannes 2026
A nine-year-old boy overhears his surgeon father admit a mistake that may have cost a man his life. In a household where a broken thing must be hidden, or it destroys you, the boy learns to carry the secret the way adults do — and must decide whether to become like them.
This film comes from my own childhood. My father was a surgeon. The aquarium, the broken thermometer, the basement, the night in the kitchen: these are not invented situations. They are things I remember, reassembled into a single story.
What interests me is not the surgical mistake. It is the way a family teaches a child to hide. I grew up among adults who believed that being strong meant never admitting you were wrong, and I watched how that silence shaped children who tried to earn love by being perfect. The boy in this film is learning the exact lesson that is quietly destroying his father: that you do not show broken things. The question the film asks is whether he will inherit it or break it.
- Stage Active development
- Script In progress — written under supervision of a university mentor
- Treatment Completed
- Target Production within the next year
- Open to Co-production discussions and funding conversations
Matvey Krivolapov
Film director based in Berlin, originally from Siberia. His work has been recognised at the Rome Prisma Film Awards, the Golden Earth Film Award (Dallas), Fashionclash Film Festival, and 24 Frame Al Secondo, Rome. Anesthesia is his first project developed through the Young Director Award circuit at Cannes.