I Am Twenty

I Am Twenty (1965) is a Soviet drama by Marlen Khutsiev, available to watch online on iFILM. Sergei comes back from military service, takes a job at a thermal power plant, and falls back in with childhood friends — the already-settled Slava and the carefree Kolai. On a bus one afternoon he falls for a woman he has never seen before.

Three young men drift through Moscow without a plan — except the vague, urgent sense that they need to become themselves. The cast includes Valentin Popov, Nikolai Gubenko, and Stanislav Lyubshin, with Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky turning up in small roles as film students not yet famous for anything.

Originally titled Ilyich's Gate, the film was cut and renamed under censorship before its 1965 release. Khutsiev shot Moscow like a documentarian: real courtyards, ambient noise, faces that were never coached. It stands as one of the defining records of the Soviet Thaw — and, surprisingly, still feels alive. Stream I Am Twenty online on iFILM.