In July 2016, four reels of "Derevensky Detektiv", a 1969 Russian film starring the Soviet-era character actor Mikhail Zharov (1899-1981), were found in a fisherman's net trawling the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles off the Icelandic coast. The recovered footage is combined with original music by David Lang, and interwoven with interviews and clips from Zharov's lengthy filmography to form a song cycle, reflecting how life, history, and art intersect and endure on celluloid.—the Director