Description
An essay on a return to the city of childhood, where private memories of a catastrophe, historical traces, and Leo Tolstoy’s night in Arzamas fold into an uneasy image of the place. Present-day Arzamas, archival testimony, staged images, and the author’s recollections sit in the film as separate layers of time. The night Tolstoy lived through in Arzamas opens a realm of dream, where the past meets a future that, for the author, has already become a memory. Little by little, from those layers, Arzamas appears — a beautiful, scarred city.
About the director:
Natalia Budkina
Director of documentary and experimental film, and a video artist. She graduated from VGIK, and later from the documentary workshop of the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors. Her films combine documentary observation, staged scenes, and archive. Her feature-length diploma film Alone with Others won Best Feature Documentary at the Levadia IFF in Greece and Best Debut at Bracciano Film Festival, among other awards. The experimental short NATURE MORTE, shot on 35 mm, screened at the Mykonos Biennale, has been shown in museums and exhibition spaces, and entered the video-art collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bogotá.