Festival Films A-Z

Vodar Films
Irene Vodar
790 Riverside Drive, Suite 7C
New York, NY 10032
USA
Tel.: +1 64 62 20 59 82
E-Mail: irenevodar@aol.com

Neihausen-Yatskova Films, LLC
335 E. 90th St
Suite 3F
New York, NY, 10128
Tel:+1 917 804 1375
raphaela.neihausen@gmail.com

Internet:
www.missgulag.com

Grigori Rudakov

Peter Kinoy, Stephen Ovenden

Synopsis

The Sibirian camp UF-91/9 is a prison for female offenders. "Coming here is a tragedy", says one of the inmates, "depression on all sides. I think a woman should always be beautiful. Not just on the other side of the fence. Even if she's in here she should show her beauty. She shouldn't hide it within these walls." The beauty of the women at camp UF-91/9 does indeed come into its own -- at a fashion show that is at the heart of Maria Yatskova's film. Once a year, the prisoners put on a show of their own creations and made-to-measure designs for their fellow inmates. The show usually marks the first time they have ever set foot on a catwalk in their lives.
Yet, the fashion show is merely a pretext for the real film. The director uses the preparation of the event and the show itself to conduct in-depth conversations with three young women - Yulia, Tatiana and Natasha - who have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment at the camp. This documentary portrait is also a story about the first generation of women to have come of age in post-Soviet Russia.

Asked why she chose Yulia, Tatiana and Natasha to be her main characters, Maria Yatskova explains:
"I knew about Tatiana as a character from the article that inspired the film, and on the first day that we got there they told us she was having her parole hearing, which we filmed. To see this incredibly vibrant and magnetic person literally shake in front of the judge was a duality that I knew would be fascinating to explore on film. What clinched it for Yulia is that there was something really sweet and nice and kind about her in contrast to Tatiana who was this fireball. You look at Yulia and you still see the little girl and it made me wonder how this little girl wound up in prison.
The third character, Natasha, was a bit of a happy accident. She was living in Voskresenka, this village in the middle of nowhere, with her family, and we weren't sure that we'd ever be able to find her or that she'd want to recollect her past. Her story is the most complex and we knew that it would pose a great challenge to get it across on the screen. She won us over not just because she was so vivid and powerful and creative, but because her spirit never broke, so we knew that we had to give her and her family a chance to tell their story on their own terms. My goal was to have a triptych - one woman who has gone through this prison experience and is already free, one woman we're following who is possibly on the verge of being released and one woman who is stuck. So we catch each one at a different point in her life, but the experience as a whole is something they all go through."

Dates

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