Once Upon a Time in the Provinces

Colour, 35 mm
Russia, 2008, 106 min
Section: A Female Take on Russia

About the film

Television celebrity Nastya seeks refuge with her sister Vera after a conflict with her father, a general. He once drove Vera out of the house as well, and sent her good-looking but plebeian husband Kolya to Chechnya. The couple and their child are now scraping a living in a workers’ dormitory. Injured during the war, Kolya suffers ugly seizures and is irritated by the presence of the stylish Nastya. The situation is reminiscent of Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire… The plot is rounded out with typical inhabitants of the devastated provinces, the home of a growing community of migrants from Central Asia, and the only diversion for the local youth is vodka and casual sex. The drama of Nastya’s flight from Moscow pales into insignificance when she is confronted with the fate of her sister and the drastic conditions of provincial life, in which she desperately tries to find her footing. Rough morals and disruptive relationships have become the natural means to survive a bleak existence, from which there is no escape. More insidious than material deprivation, however, is the utter emotional brutality which breeds all manner of deception and betrayal.

About the director

Katya Shagalova (b. 1976, Moscow) studied screenwriting at VGIK (1997) and subsequently took a course in stage direction at GITIS (2002). She wrote the script for the TV series "Viola Tarakanova. In a World of Criminal Passion” ("Viola Tarakanova. V mire prestupnych strastyey”), for the TV channel TV-6 she made the documentary Date of Birth (Data rozhdyeniya, 2001), and she has directed for the stage at Moscow’s New Opera Theatre and the Royal Court in London. She gave her film debut as director and screenwriter with Pavlov’s Dog (Sobaka Pavlova, 2005), in which she confronts psychiatrists over the insanity of a young couple placed by their parents in an institution. The film won awards for Best Debut and Best Direction at domestic festivals (Window to Europe – Vyborg, Stalker – Moscow, Amur Autumn – Blagoveshchensk, Crimea Island – Sevastopol).