Festival Films A-Z

Sankt Petersburg Documentary Film Studio Krukov kanal 12
190068 Sankt Petersburg
Russland
Tel.: +7 812 7140806
E-Mail: cinedoc@peterstar.ru

Alexander Fillipov

Alexander Dmitriev

Ton: Valery Petriashvili

Sankt Petersburg Documentary Film Studio Krukov kanal 12
190068 Sankt Petersburg
Russland
Tel.: +7 812 7140806
E-Mail: cinedoc@peterstar.ru

Synopsis

Civil Status accumulates scenes from a registry office in St. Petersburg where stoical women with imperturbable looks on their faces sit behind their desks and issue death, birth, divorce, and marriage certificates. Employing a fine sense of humour but without exposing the people filmed, Rudnitskaya depicts a rarely-seen world. The old-fashioned, grainy black-and-white film material protects those being filmed, allowing them to appear deeply human.
Barbara Schweizerhof

Ever since bio-political instances have been recorded and accessible, people's civil status has been analysable from forms and documents. A box is ticked, details are filled in, there is a signature, a stamp and a person becomes a piece of data. The most emotional moments of a life can rapidly become just a set of figures, whether a couple's happiness and love, or the unhappiness of death and grief. The young Russian Alina Rudnitskaya does credit to the St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studio, with its long tradition. In the film, time seems to have stood still for 40 years, so similar are the film's protagonists to the classic types from the Sixties. Only the off-voice is missing -- fortunately. In contrast-rich black-and-white and with the help of incredibly precise takes, the great small world of the registry office unfolds. Mental torments on both sides (the visitors and the employees) and a spectrum of feelings, which range from stoical calm to pragmatic composure, over to terrible despair and sheer hysteria. People cry, shout, argue and make up in front of the civil servants and some even fall in love with them. ?What, you want to know the name of the person dealing with your divorce?? "Nadia -- hope". Cinematheque Leipzig

Civil Status won the main prize at the 52nd Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in 2006 and was selected as the Best Documentary Short Film at the 22nd International Short Film Festival Berlin the same year.

Biography

Letter (2001), Communal Residence (2002), Rural Lessons (2004)

Filmography

Letter (2001), Communal Residence (2002), Rural Lessons (2004)

Dates

54	06.10.2007	16:00	Kommkino
82	08.10.2007	19:00	Festsaal