Empire V (2023)

Set in modern-day Moscow, Victor Ginzburg's new movie "Empire V" is both a vampire love story and a pitch black satire of contemporary Russia and its power elite. It is also a sensuous and politically charged portrait of a world not so far removed from the West. Based on the novel by Victor Pelevin, "Empire V" charts the path of an average young man challenged by a Faustian gift of power and knowledge when he is inducted into an elite super-race of vampires. But these vampires don't need blood to survive. Instead they feed on the mysterious Bablos, a super-drug milked in minute quantities from humanity - but in a much more fundamental and brutal way. Now known as Rama II, our young hero begins to question his new status and confides in a mysterious fellow initiate, the beautiful Hera. When the young couple break a cardinal rule by falling for each other, their new world turns on them.