A toothless production team hires a trendy young pretty boy, barely an actor, to star in classic Soviet director's latest film, to play a role of a lifetime, a one he never was meant to play: that of a gruesome serial killer. Powerless before the might of bureaucracy, the veteran cinematographer will have to turn the stuck-up kid into a proper actor in record time, or have the money-making face quit all together; whichever one it will be, he knows just what he needs to put the young one through to get him there.