«The film’s sheer scale and ambition elicited gasps of awe upon its release in 2002. Four years in development, it was the first feature to be shot in one continuous, HD Steadicam shot covering more than one and a half kilometres. Utilising more than 850 professional actors, 1000 extras and spanning three centuries of Russian history, the film is set in a museum which holds several million artworks. Russian Ark was, as Sokurov has stated, an attempt to make a film “in one breath”.»