Bread Day unflinchingly depicts a community of pensioners living in near isolation outside of St. Petersberg as it enacts the weekly ritual of bringing a delivery of bread—left at a rail junction two hours away—into the village for distribution.  Dvortsevoy documents the struggle as the elderly residents complete their arduous task and then gather in the store, where portions are unsatisfactory and interactions grow heated.  Attentive as much to the people as to the landscape and the animals that share it, Dvortsevoy captures village goats and a litter of puppies along with the bleakness of rural poverty and old
age.

Moving closer to the urban centers of Russia, Dvortsevoy turns his camera on an elderly blind man living alone in the suburbs of Moscow. His one companion is a clever white cat who continually frustrates his work netting the string bags that he takes to the street to give away to passers-by. Unrelenting in its gaze and simple in its approach, In the Dark quietly reveals the profound pathos of solitude and isolation with humanity and tenderness.