Ma Russie

At the Berlin Film Festival-63, which opens on February 7, Russia is fighting for workers' rights and trying to restore destroyed agriculture

Two feature films represent our country. In the competition - "A Long Happy Life" by Boris Khlebnikov, in the forum - "For Marx" by Svetlana Baskova.

"A Long Happy Life" is a paraphrase of Fred Zinnemann's well-known crime drama High Noon, transferred to Russian soil. At Zinnemann's, the sheriff protected the town from the gang; at Khlebnikov's, a young farmer refuses to leave the leased land, despite pressure from local authorities and the police. In the film "For Marx" activists of an independent trade union enter into an unequal struggle with the owners of the plant for their rights. These are stories of mutual assistance and betrayal - qualities that are paradoxically intertwined in the Russian character.

In the section of children's and youth films, there are two films by graduates of the school-studio "SHAR": "The Mole on the Sea" by Anna Kadykova (about the desire of one Mole to leave the dusty city for the "clean" sea) and the film-dream "Winter has come" by Vasily Shlychkov. As well as the Russian-French "Marussia" by Eva Pervolovichi (producers Janya Krali and Sergey Selyanov). "Ma Russie" is French for "My Russia". Marusya is the name of a little girl who lives with her mother in Paris and knows about her homeland only by hearsay.

The opening film will be "The Great Masters" - a film by the famous Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, who will head the jury of the main competition. Festival director Dieter Kosslick noted the visual power of the work dedicated to the masters of Chinese martial arts. Kar-wai has been involved in film for almost 10 years.

The main program "Night Train to Lisbon" includes a co-production (Germany/Switzerland/Portugal), which was shot by Danish director Bille August based on the bestseller by Pascal Mercier. Two-time winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Video, Traffic, Solaris) will show the psychological drama Side Effect with Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, which tells about the unequal struggle with depression. Frederick Bond, an international director of Swedish origin, will tell the story of an American's extreme journey to Budapest - "The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman". In the Promised Land competition, Cannes Palme d'Or winner Gus Van Sant with Matt Damon. The actor himself planned to shoot the picture as a director, but in agreement with the producers, he gave it to Van Sant. The film takes place in a small American town during a crisis. The eminent Austrian director Ulrich Seidl completes his "heavenly film trilogy". The final part of the epic canvas is called "Paradise: Hope" ("Paradise: Love" was shown in Cannes, "Paradise: Faith" - in Venice) and continues the search for female happiness.

French films will present the world with the next works of national movie stars: “Camille Claudel 1915” by Bruno Dumont - Juliette Binoche, “On my way” by Emmanuelle Bercot - Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert starred in the co-production of France, Germany and Belgium “The Nun”.

The competition includes not only South Korean, Chilean, Romanian films, but for the first time also a film from Kazakhstan: "Lessons of Harmony" - a joint production with Germany. This is the directorial debut of 28-year-old Emir Baigazin. The film's producer is Anna Kachko, a graduate of the New York Film Academy (NYFA). The work was supported by the World Film Fund at the Berlinale festival as "carrying an innovative and aesthetic approach." The film also received a prize at the Sarajevo International Film Festival. Timur Aidarbekov, a 14-year-old orphanage resident, plays the leading role. "Lessons in Harmony" is a gritty contemporary story about school violence shot by a young team of filmmakers.

The film "Parde" by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is still under arrest for "anti-government activities", is expected with special attention. It is becoming a tradition for the world's major festivals to show films by a director who has been persecuted in his homeland and even invite him to the jury. Let me remind you: during the Iranian Film Week in Moscow, Russian film critics held pickets in front of the Khudozhestvenny cinema, advocating for the release of the director, who suffered for opposition activities.