Toly­at­ti is the Russ­ian Detroit. Toly­at­ti used to be con­sid­ered the center of the Soviet auto­mo­tive indus­try, with full employ­ment for all and modest pros­per­i­ty. But today, the almost-metrop­o­lis lags behind the former glory of AwtoWAS, the Volga Auto­mo­bile Plant, and is the city with the high­est youth unem­ploy­ment in Russia. Slava, Misha and Lera keep their heads above water with bad jobs. Misha has done an intern­ship in West­ern Europe and would also have the prospect of a good job in Russia - but not in Toly­at­ti. Lera is also think­ing of leav­ing her home­town. Final­ly, Slava audi­tions a lot, but hardly finds work. More­over, he is to be draft­ed into the army. But he is too short of money to pay the bribe for exemp­tion from mil­i­tary ser­vice. So the young people look for anoth­er daring pas­time. With tuned old Ladas - what else? - in winter, they drive across the frozen Volga River, which is par­tic­u­lar­ly wide in Toly­at­ti. Youth­ful daring defies ice and police checks, and an escapist verve beats real­i­ty for a moment. (Kira Tasz­man) 

Laura Sis­teró, born in Barcelona in 1986. In 2012 she obtained a bachelor’s degree in film at the ESCAC school in Barcelona, spe­cial­iz­ing in doc­u­men­tary direc­tion. She cur­rent­ly com­bines her work as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, adver­tis­ing and tele­vi­sion direc­tor, with more per­son­al fic­tion and doc­u­men­tary film projects. TOLYATTI ADRIFT is her first fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary and gained a.o. an award at Krakow Film Fes­ti­val as Best Film on Social Issues.