More Coffee, Less Sugar
Original title: 4 кофе, 3 сахара
Four strange stories in one café — photographers, a marriage on a credit pitch, a producer at boiling point, a waiter’s wrong day.
More Coffee, Less Sugar (4 кофе, 3 сахара; international card “More coffe, less sugar”) is a Kharkiv comedy anthology (2010) about four odd stories that unfold in and around one café and link by place and chance. Official Vimeo description: photographers who meet by accident and bond over craft while one hides a secret; a businessman who brings his wife to a meeting hoping she will soften a banker for a loan while their marriage hangs by a thread; a film producer trying to save a project until he reaches boiling point; a waiter simply having “not that day.” Light “it can’t be” coincidence comedy rather than heavy drama. Visual register moves across café tables, a stage-like bar with drums and guitars, library/office deal scenes, striped-wall laptop talk, Soviet wall-phone corridor, and sunny street exteriors. Cast (Vimeo card): Yevgeny Timchenko, Igor Golovkin, Valery Sverzhin, Anna Darmoriz, Pavel Kondakov, Valeria Savluk, Mikhail Belov, Irina Stroiteleva, Yana Kudryavtseva, Oleg Adereyko, Oleg Letko, Igor Zagorodniy. Released Kharkiv, Ukraine; studio credit on key art includes MARX film. Same early independent period as New Life and Yoshlochka.
Facts
- 2010
- 41m (41 min)
- Short · Comedy · Anthology
- Comedy, Anthology, Short, Ukrainian cinema, Independent
- Russian
- Kharkiv; Ukraine
- Sasha Poberailo
Themes
One café, four plots
A single service space stitches photographers, creditors, producers, and staff — social classes share cups and cross paths by design of the anthology.
“It can’t be” coincidence
Odd circumstance comedy: the pleasure is unlikely linkage and timing, not tragic weight.
Work and intimacy under pressure
Loan pitch with a failing marriage, producer panic, waiter’s bad shift — labour and love collapse in public rooms.
Photographers’ secret
Craft fellowship with a hidden truth — image-makers as the first strand of a film about how people stage themselves.
Cup as title object
Key art and title fix on coffee and sugar — the anthology’s unit of measure for time spent talking, waiting, and failing politely.
Characters
The photographers
Chance-met pair united by craft; one conceals a secret that reframes the bond. Café/phone energy in early reels.
Businessman, wife & banker
Credit performance at the table: wife as softener, marriage already failing, banker as gate.
The producer
Tries to save a film project — boiling point of creative industry panic (papers, pitches, stage-like meetings).
The waiter
Simply the wrong day — service spine that can cross every other story in the room.
- Sasha Poberailo
- Sasha Poberailo
- Sasha Poberailo
- Sasha Poberailo
- Sasha Poberailo
- Yevgeny Timchenko
- Igor Golovkin
- Valery Sverzhin
- Anna Darmoriz
- Pavel Kondakov
- Valeria Savluk
- Mikhail Belov
- Irina Stroiteleva
- Yana Kudryavtseva
- Oleg Adereyko
- Oleg Letko
- Igor Zagorodniy
More Coffee Less Sugar · 4 кофе 3 сахара · 4 кофе, 3 сахара · anthology · café · comedy · Kharkiv · 2010 · Vimeo · MARX film · independent film
Scene map · 5
Café tables & calls
Cups, phones, brick walls, instruments in the background — social noise of the shared location.
Stage / club corner
Drums, guitars, red light — producer or performer space that still drinks coffee.
Library / office deal
Bookshelves, green lamp, papers — banker/business strand under wooden furniture.
Striped wall · laptop
Animated talk at a white table with laptop and cups — contemporary café face of the anthology.
Wall phone / street
Corridor with Soviet wall apparatus; later sunny exterior couple — threads leaving the café.
