A Female Take on Russia 2009 / Mars / Russia 2004
Destiny takes a boxer to the town of Marx (in Russian, Marx is spelled "Marks”), which resembles the mysterious planet in various ways, not only because of the "K” missing from the neon station sign. Shrewdly combining fantasy with earthbound reality, the director comments on the eccentricities of heart and mind in her compatriots, taken unawares by their new post-Soviet circumstances.
The director of the famous Mermaid had already shown her fondness for tragicomic melodrama in her debut film Mars. Shrewdly combining the fantastic with the ordinary, she comments on the eccentricities of heart and mind in her compatriots, taken unawares by their new post-Soviet circumstances. The instigator behind the film’s bizarre goings-on is a boxer who finds himself in the town of Marx (in Russian spelled "Marks”). The provincial town resembles the mysterious planet in various ways, not only because of the "K” missing from the neon station sign. Everything happens here in a somewhat deranged manner. The local currency takes the form of toys manufactured at the town plant. The local women are still hoping for happiness, but their ideas and attempts to achieve it seem martian. Their bitterly terrestrial existence is eloquently conveyed in precise details, characteristic of the mentality of provincial Russians. At the same time, the film’s keen observations don’t contradict, but rather enhance, the sense of an encounter with the phantasmagoric. The role of the narrator is entrusted to the camera which, with vitality and unobtrusive detachment, instils in everything that happens an aroma of ambivalence...
97 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Anna Melikyan
/ Screenplay Anna Melikjan / Anna Melikyan
/ Dir. of Photography Oleg Lukičev / Oleg Lukichev
/ Music Alexej Ajgi / Aleksey Aigi
/ Editor Ivan Lebeděv / Ivan Lebedev
/ Producer Sabina Jeremejeva / Sabina Eremeeva, Ruben Dišdišjan / Ruben Dishdishyan
/ Production Studio Slon
/ Cast Goša Kucenko / Gosha Kutsenko, Nana Kiknadze, Artur Smoljaninov / Artur Smolianinov
/ Contact Central Partnership
Anna Melikyan (b. 1976, Baku) graduated from VGIK (2002) under Sergey Solovyov. During her studies she made the successful short films Andante (1997), Let’s Fly (Poletyeli, 1999), Poste Restante (Do vostrebovaniya, 2000) and her graduation film Contrabass (2002). In 1998 she directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Moscow IFF, and she took short-term attachments with post-production companies in Germany. After her writing and directorial debut Mars (2004), screened at a number of festivals, she made the TV documentaries The Curse of the Onassis Clan (Proklyatiye klana Onassisov, 2005) and Things of War (Veshchi voyny, 2005). She enjoyed critical acclaim at home and abroad for her second feature film Mermaid (Rusalka, 2007), which won Best Film in the Forum of Independents in Karlovy Vary last year.
Central Partnership
15,1st Zachatievsky Lane, 119 034, Moscow
Russia
Phone: +7 495 777 49 61
Fax: +7 495 799 56 70
E-mail: [email protected]
Armen Dishdishyan
Sales Agent
Yana Yesipovich
Actress
First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.
