A trip to the USSR is expected at the Rotterdam Film Festival

The world’s largest auteur film festival will show films from Russia and the post-Soviet space

On January 25, the 52nd Rotterdam Film Festival opened with New Zealand’s Head South by Jonathan Ogilvie. His priority is independent, auteur and debut films. The “Bright Future” competition program included the film “Ashes and Dolomite” by Toma Selivanova, a graduate of the Moscow School of New Cinema. She received support from the Dutch Hubert Bals Foundation, named after the founder of the Rotterdam Festival and supporting emerging and talented directors from around the world.

Toma Selivanova shot a dramatic road movie, the participants of which were film director Dina and German musician Johan. They travel to places where camps were located during the years of Stalin’s repressions. In fact, this is a journey to the Gulag, with which the fate of the relatives of the main characters is connected. Dina was played by Toma Selivanov. The producer of the film is Sergei Kornikhin, who worked on the films of Mikhail Mestetsky and Nigina Sayfullaeva, a musician of the Shklovsky group.

Documentary maker Liliya Filina presents her short film “Magic and Propaganda” at the festival.

“Steppenwolf” by Kazakh director Adilkhan Erzhanov, who makes films in Russian and Kazakh, is participating in the “Big Screen” competition section. The film, apparently, has nothing to do with the novel by Hermann Hesse. He talks about the trade in children’s organs. One of the main roles was played by Russian actor Azamat Nigmanov.

Uzbekistan is represented by the film “Bull’s Heart” by a graduate of the Moscow School of New Cinema Margarita Bagdasaryan based on the script by Mikhail Borodin, who is known for his directorial debut “Products 24”. He also became the producer of Bull’s Heart.

Soviet-Estonian director Sulev Keedus, who once graduated from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in Moscow, is presenting in Rotterdam two films from previous years – “Georgica” and “Somnambulist”. In 2011, he was recognized as the best director in Anapa at the festival of the CIS and Baltic countries “Kinoshock” for the film “Letters to an Angel” about a man who went through Afghanistan and converted to Islam. Keedus could also have gotten there, but by that time he had two children, which resolved the situation, although there had already been a decision to send him to Afghanistan, which he learned about at the military registration and enlistment office. Later, Sulev thought a lot about what could have happened to him if he had found himself in a hot spot. Someone was sent there from Estonia every year, and zinc coffins began to be delivered to Tallinn.

The film “Thrush, Blackberry, Blackberry” by Georgian director Elena Naveriani aroused great interest among the public in advance. She studied in Tbilisi and Geneva, participated with her films in festivals in Rotterdam and Locarno, and works with Swiss producers. Her new film is based on a novel by Tamta Melashvili, who is positioned at the festival as a feminist.

And this is not a complete list of paintings representing the post-Soviet space.