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# The actor Sergei Dreiden (Dontsov) has died today. I remember him from two roles: in Kirill Serebrennikov's recent "Petrov's Flu" and in Yury Mamin's good old "Window to Paris"
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/segodnia-ne-stalo-aktera-sergeia-dreidena-dontsova-kotoryi-zapomnilsia-mne-po-dvum-roliam-v-nedavnikh-petrovykh-v-grippe-kirilla-serebrennikova-i-po-staromu-dobromu-oknu-v-parizh-iuriia/
- Published: 2023-05-08T17:09:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:36:37.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Cinema, Observations, Paris, People, Saint Petersburg

Though not, in my view, the best known of films, "Window to Paris" is one of the important, truly Russian pictures. Very delicate and funny, tragic, absurd and bitterly truthful.

A prim old lady hides a magical secret in her room in a grimy, noisy communal flat: on certain days her window opens onto Paris. Her loathsome neighbours worm the secret out of her and burst onto the Champs-Élysées in a gale of rubbish, straight from a Petersburg back alley. Sergei Dreiden plays the only person who was able to feel the wonder of this magical passage from Russian to European reality.

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