the most ambitious filmmaking experiment in history

IndieWire
  • Archive - Festival 36
  • Director: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel
  • Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Russia 2020
  • 145 minutes
  • Russian, Ukrainian, English
  • Subtitles in Hebrew

Natasha runs the canteen at a secret 1950s Soviet research institute. This is the beating heart of the DAU universe, everyone drops in here: the Institute’s employees, scientists and visiting foreign guests. One evening Natasha sleeps with a visiting French scientist, the following day she is summoned to an interrogation by a KGB officer, who questions the nature of her relationship with the foreign guest.

DAU. Natasha is the first feature from Ilya Khrzhanovskiy’s large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system. The multimedia project DAU, shot over two years, involved the building of a vast set that recreated the conditions of a Stalin-era USSR scientific research centre, where the film’s crew and non-professional cast lived in historically authentic conditions.

Ilya Khrzhanovskiy is the son of Andrey Khrzhanovsky, one of Russia’s leading animators, whose film The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks is presented in the Festival’s program as well.

Filmography: 4 (2004).

The film contains disturbing scenes.

The film is suitable for viewing from the age of 18 and up only.

 

For more information about the project


  • Director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel
  • Production Sergey Adoniev
  • Script Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel
  • Cinematography Jürgen Jürges
  • Editing Brand Thumim
  • Festivals Berlin (Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution)
  • Actors Natasha Berezhnaya, Vladimir Azhippo, Olga Shkabarnya, Luc Bigé, Alexey Blinov
  • Source Coproduction Office, Paris