Director Ella Manzheeva presented a woman as a steppe

The 2nd Winter Festival of Author Films opened in Moscow with the documentary “The Architect: The Story of Alexei German and His Films.” For reasons beyond the control of its organizers, it is now associated with the revocation of the distribution certificate of the Yakut film “Aita,” which a year ago received two awards from the jury led by Alexei German Jr.

Now a similar fate awaits another competition film – “Let’s go with you to Macau” by Roman Mikhailov. She was issued a rental certificate by the Ministry of Culture only for the period of participation in the festival.

An unpleasant story is also connected with the film about Herman Sr., which turned out to be “a work without authorship.” Its release caused a scandal in the press and social networks, when after the screening of the film at “Message to Man” in St. Petersburg, the question arose about who the director was, why his name was not indicated in the credits, and only the artistic director of the project, Alexey German Jr., was mentioned. And then the story surfaced that film critic Anton Dolin, now declared a foreign agent, was filming the film, and they almost demanded that he withdraw his name. The story is foggy, confusing, leading to the fact that recent friends ruined their relationship. Each of them has their own truth. Many questions remain, and the film is now called a documentary project by Alexei German Jr. and Elena Okopnaya, his wife and production designer.

Eight films are participating in the competition: “Dance, Herring!” Alexandra Lupashko, “Let’s go with you to Macau” by Roman Mikhailov, “110” by Ilya Mikheev, “White Road!” Ella Manzheeva, “Vera” by Ira Volkova, “Timir” by Nikolai Koryakin (Aidyn Ate), “Panic Attacks” by Ivan I. Tverdovsky and “Headless” by Evgeny Grigoriev.

In the spirit of new times, the jury was headed by media manager and producer Sofya Mitrofanova, under whose leadership the films will be judged by people who have done much more in art – Yakut film director and screenwriter Dmitry Davydov, actress and director Daria Moroz, production designer Sergei Fevralev, actor Daniil Vorobyov.

The title of one of the competition films is “The White Road!” – is associated with the Kalmyk good wishes, which are pronounced before a journey or an important task in order to avoid troubles. Ella Manzheeva, remembered for her film “The Seagulls,” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, has now directed a mystical drama based on her own script, work on which lasted ten years from the moment the idea was conceived.

The young and popular rapper Aldar, played by Buryat rapper Timur Bubeev, known as Everthe8, according to the story, left his native Kalmykia, where Ella Manzheeva herself is from. He lives in Moscow and hasn’t thought about his mother for ten years. Now, when she seemed to have disappeared into the steppe, having gone in search of the missing cow, the prodigal son returns to his native land.

The metropolis where the main character lives is like a reproach and challenge to the steppe and the patriarchal way of life. Everything is too straightforward. But, as Ella Manzheeva will say, this is a struggle between the memory of the Great Steppe and the secular world. Aldar will meet a girl at the club who will introduce herself as Sveta. Nina Usuntsynova played the role of a random friend, and her beauty will not be revealed immediately, which is a hundred times more valuable. Everything will happen quickly for them, and these two will scatter, but fate will bring them together under different circumstances.

The search for the mother leads nowhere. It was as if the steppe had swallowed her up. The hero turns to the shaman, who will not see her among the dead, to the lama, who will advise her to find the place where Aldar’s umbilical cord fell. He plunges into memories, watches old videotapes, where he dances with his mother to a Joe Dassin song and promises to give her a trip to France for her birthday. One thing confuses me: my mother’s dream is to spit from the Eiffel Tower. Is it worth going to Paris for this? Perhaps this has something to do with the ancient ritual that we will be shown: elderly women spit out water that was ritually collected in their mouths.

And Sveta is not Sveta at all. She has a different name. She is the sister of Aldar’s deceased friend, and now the two of them will go to the steppe in search of the place of the umbilical cord along the infernal “milk river” buried in fog. It turns out that only misfortune can put a person’s brain in order.

Mother will always be there, like a shadow, in the back seat of the car. She died, this is clear, but Aldar pretends that she is alive. You can’t get out of the steppe with her. It’s time to let her go. “She was a good woman, hard-working,” the father he meets in the city will later tell Aldar. He left his family long ago, but the lama ordered him to be found. For what? To have the opportunity to help and forgive.

Sveta in a cloud of veil, like a bride, will lead her chosen one into the snowy steppe. The beauty of our native land cannot be described, you can only breathe it. Blue sky, blue fence… The picture was shot by cameramen Ekaterina Orlovskaya and Alexander Kuznetsov in gray-blue, cold tones. She is mesmerizing.

The title of Ella Manzheeva’s early film “A Woman Inside is Like a Steppe” became the key title for “The White Road!” A mother carried away into endless spaces, a girl who has become a bride – they are also like infinity, the music of the spheres.