Natasha doesn't have joy in her life. There is nothing at all remarkable about her. In her 50s and feeling older, she works as a clerk at a provincial zoo in a small, dismal town. Her colleagues treat her like dirt. Men don't give her a second glance. Except for her conservative, religious mother, she is alone. And then something changes: she grows a tail. 

It's quite long, though not too long to hide away beneath her clothes. Still, she really can't ignore it. She goes to the hospital. Her radiologist is an attractive young man and-wonder of wonders!-her tail tickles his fancy.

Played straight (as straight as possible in the circumstances), Ivan Tverdovsky's bold second feature is a surreal comedy, a fetishistic love story, and, one assumes, an allegory for the repression of LGBT rights in Putin's Russia. Certainly the Orthodox Church bears the brunt of Tverdovsky's satire. But it's Natalia Pavlenkova's wonderful, multilayered performance as Natasha that carries the movie's emotional line and ensures this tail doesn't wag the dog.

Winner: Special Jury Prize, Karlovy Vary; Best Actress, Sochi