Hipsters

Colour, 35 mm
Russia, 2008, 125 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Official Selection - Out of Competition

Synopsis

It’s 1955. Stalin has been dead two years, but not even Khrushchev’s thaw can prevent Komsomol shock troops hounding fans of American rhythms and fashion. The student Mels (Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin) finds himself part of their crowd when he falls in love with Polya. He joins a gang of hipsters who meet up on Moscow’s "Broadway” (Gorky/Tverskaya street), then gets himself an eccentric outfit and is soon a hit on the dance floor as well. He is expelled from college and finds himself a substitute – the saxophone. He now goes by the name Mel and has the lovely Polya by his side... Retro-musical scenes alternate with sequences in which the director uses witty hyperbole to present the state of mind and lifestyle of various levels of the Soviet population. The young people’s craving for forbidden fruit will leave both an intoxicating and bitter taste in their mouths. Mel’s mentor Fred goes back to being Fyodor as soon as his high-ranking father fixes him up with a job in America. But he comes back to Moscow with bad news: they’re wearing different fashions over there and there’s no sign of any rebellion…

About the director

Valery Todorovsky (b. 1962, Odessa) studied screenwriting at VGIK (1988) and wrote the scripts for the successful films Dvoynik (1986), Gambrinus (1990), Cynics (Cyniki, 1991), and Over the Dark Water (Nad tyomnoy vodoy, 1993). He debuted as a director with Mortuary Car (Katafalk, 1989, Golden Ducat in Mannheim). This was followed by the acclaimed films Love (Lyubov, 1991), an updated film version of Nikolai Leskov’s novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District entitled Katya Ismailova (Podmoskovniye vechera, 1994), the drama The Land of the Deaf (Strana glukhikh, 1997), The Lover (Lyubovnik, 2002), My Stepbrother Frankenstein (Moy svodny brat Frankenshteyn, 2004), screened in competition at Karlovy Vary, and Vice (Tiski, 2007). Hipsters is his attempt at the musical genre. Todorovsky also works as a film producer.