Provincial Girls
Portraying several Russian women between the age of 18 and 45, the documentary builds an epic story about the typical life circle of a provincial girl who has come to Moscow.
How will her life unfold, will the big city corrupt her ideals?
We made a film about three provincial girls back in the nineties, when Russia was in the middle of its shockwave transition from out-dated communism to raw capitalism. Now, these women are in their forties, bound to make up the balance of their life. We compare their current life with their ideals back then. Did they succeed or fail, how do they see that? What did they learn? And… are they happy?
At the same time, we follow a new young provincial girl, full of boiling energy and hope, on her six-day journey to Moscow (by bus and train). She chats with her female co-passengers of different age and background, asking for advice. And in Moscow itself, we follow up to six other girls, all at a decisive moment in their life.
Portraying this cross-section of women, the film depicts nowadays-Russian womanhood in a city that despite its 25 years of openness is still so unknown. Our dream is to make a documentary that rides like a rollercoaster; capturing dreams and disappointments, hopes and doubts, glamour and dirt, frustration and acceptance of life as it comes.
How will her life unfold, will the big city corrupt her ideals?
We made a film about three provincial girls back in the nineties, when Russia was in the middle of its shockwave transition from out-dated communism to raw capitalism. Now, these women are in their forties, bound to make up the balance of their life. We compare their current life with their ideals back then. Did they succeed or fail, how do they see that? What did they learn? And… are they happy?
At the same time, we follow a new young provincial girl, full of boiling energy and hope, on her six-day journey to Moscow (by bus and train). She chats with her female co-passengers of different age and background, asking for advice. And in Moscow itself, we follow up to six other girls, all at a decisive moment in their life.
Portraying this cross-section of women, the film depicts nowadays-Russian womanhood in a city that despite its 25 years of openness is still so unknown. Our dream is to make a documentary that rides like a rollercoaster; capturing dreams and disappointments, hopes and doubts, glamour and dirt, frustration and acceptance of life as it comes.
Welcome to New Karabash
In the Urals lies Karabash, once the dirtiest city on Earth. A state plan promises a new Switzerland - parks, fresh paint and PR films for a town ruled by a copper smelter. Over eight years as the world shifts, filmmaker Olga keeps returning from her "clean" Berlin life to follow two men inside this staged progress. Ajrat, a worker and father who once turned his house into a mosque, loses his garden, his son and finally his family before taking a job at the factory he hates. Gennadij, an ex-councillor who helped build dirty Karabash and raised a metal cross above it, clings to ritual and control as his influence crumbles. As power tightens in Russia and men are sent to a distant war, the filmmaker is detained for her work and sees how her own silence mirrors the town's.