The Mother

Colour, DIGIBETA
Switzerland, France, Russia, 2007, 80 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

The main character in this film is Lyuba, who flees with her nine children to the countryside to escape from a violent husband. She tries to earn a living at a dairy farm and, despite the family’s hand-to-mouth existence, she still intends adopting 3-year-old Sasha, who is being totally neglected by a work colleague. Over the three-year period in which the filmmakers record the life of Lyuba and her children, presented in the spirit of cinéma vérité, we witness the imprisonment of her eldest son, the marriage of her daughter Alesia to tractor-driver Zhenya, and the brief romance between Lyuba and Sergei. Renowned documentarists Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov have come up with an unusually strong, raw yet also poetic portrait of a woman who, despite her ill fortune, manages to express her love for her children and live a dignified existence. This remarkable record of the dramatic and intimate moments in Lyuba’s life at the same time offers a highly authentic look at the bleak reality of today’s Russia.

About the director

Antoine Cattin (b. 1975, Switzerland) studied Russian, history and film science at Lausanne university.  In Russia he was assistant director to Sergei Loznitsa. He is currently working with Pavel Kostomarov on a film by Russian director Alexei German entitled It Is Difficult to Be God. He has been living both in Russia and Switzerland over the last six years. Pavel Kostomarov (b. 1975, Moscow) graduated from the State Film Institute as a cameraman in 2003. He has worked on a number of films as a cinematographer with directors Sergey Loznitsa, Victor Asliuk, Alexey Uchitel and Alexey Popogrebsky. He lives both in Moscow and St Petersburg. Joint filmography: The Transformer ( 2003), Best Documentary at the International Festival of Short Films in Tampere; Life in Peace (2004), Silver Dove at the Leipzig festival, Silver Dragon for Best Documentary at the 45th Cracow film festival.