If a young man in black-rimmed hipster glasses knocked on your door and asked if you’d like to be in his movie, at the very least you would be intrigued. If the same man then explained that he had just built a full-scale town nearby, into which he’d like you to move, to perform for him as part of an elaborate Soviet epic, you’d probably be scared.

You probably wouldn’t be one of the hundreds of people who volunteered to participate in the strange cinema project of Ilya Khrzhanovsky, a man who has been described as everything from a creative genius to a cult leader.

Khrzhanovsky is responsible for a mysterious art film called Dau, an extensive biopic which shot for two years in a meticulously-constructed set just outside Kharkov, Ukraine. This set, like something out of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, was known as The Institute and existed between 2009 and 2011 as a fully-operating community emulating Fifties Moscow.

Stocked with historically-accurate sculptures, wardrobes and props, locals were inspired to entirely exist, dress and behave as if they were living within a Soviet-era totalitarian regime. Residents would be fined if they smuggled in phones, exhibited tardiness, or attempted to access social media -- all of which reportedly improved resident morale.