A blue wooden house at the edge of the forest, lonely, but not peaceful and quiet. This is where Lydia lives, a transgender ornithologist who presents herself in high heels and a pearl necklace one day, in cargo pants and functional wear the next. Director Sasha Kulak calls her film a documentary fairy tale, and the borders between reality and fiction are blurred indeed, because Lydia loves play, staging, the uncanny – and David Lynch.

Lydia has watched “Twin Peaks” more than thirty times, its characters and plots have long since spilled over into Shcherbinka, a small town south of Moscow. She claims to find bodies in the underbrush and even Lynch’s “Red Room” has been replicated under the roof of her house. Now she’s facing a new challenge: the creation of Lara, a lifelike silicone doll whose voice also guides us through Kulak’s cinematic tale. Lydia works hard at realising her dreams, but she is equally passionate about studying birds and the so-called Nezhulyas, shy eyeless creatures that are exceedingly cuddly and have tantric potential. “A Hawk as Big as a Horse” becomes a vehicle of Lydia’s visions, using three-dimensional animation and various cinematic techniques to open a portal to a very specific fantasy.