MAIN DRAMATIC COMPETITION “MAKING WAY”

NAZAVZHDY-NAZAVZHDY

2023 / 107 min / color

Kiev, 1990s. Shy and beautiful Tonia, our protagonist, transfers from an inner city high school to a new school and tries to find her bearings under new and different circumstances. She quickly makes friends with a group of local teens who spend hours wandering through abandoned buildings on the outskirts of town. She attracts the attention of two very different boys — Zhurik, a caring and witty charmer, and Sania, a brooding drug dealer. As this love triangle leads them into a dangerous, tangled game of passion and desire, a brutal secret from Tonia’s past suddenly comes to the surface, in a world defined by the gender prejudices of a brutal post-Soviet reality. Director Anna Buryachkova skilfully uses the conventions of coming-of-age films, embedding her a story in a specific historical context. Her film is an ode to the post-Soviet teenagers who had to struggle with typical adolescent tribulations and violent emotions, as well as the harsh reality of a total transformation of government and society.

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