In 2016, authoritarian president Vladimir Putin creates a cadet school, whose goal is to train military personnel to join the Russian National Guard. The school receives children and teenage volunteers as they undergo a strict training program over the years. In this documentary, the director permeates this daily life as a photographer, looking for loopholes that allow him to “hack” the system from fixed shots, close-ups, and sound clips. The austerity in the film’s images is the same austerity of military culture, and thus emerges a portrait of this reality. (M. M)