Vasily Stepanov is one of the leading contemporary Russian film critics, a curator for the "Message to Man" and "An Example of Intonation" film festivals, and—most importantly—a key contributor to the journal *Seans*. He began working at the publication in 2004 and served as its editor-in-chief starting in 2020. Stepanov is an encyclopedic thinker; his writing seamlessly bridges the gap between niche B-movies and world cinema classics, mobsters and robots, Sam Peckinpah, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Aleksei German. In essence, Stepanov is not merely a film critic, but a writer on cinema—a figure with a distinct style and a unique voice of his own. This book brings together his finest articles, reviews, and essays, penned over the course of his twenty-year tenure at *Seans*.