Mermaid

Rusalka

(Russia, 2008, 114 mins)

35mm

Wisconsin Premiere

writer: Anna Melikian
director of photography: Oleg Kirichenko
artistic director: Ulyana Ryabova
composer: Igor Vdovin
producer: Ruben Dishdishian
production company: Magnum Studios, Central Partnership
cast: Masha Shalaeva, Yevgeniy Tsyganov, Maria Sokova, Nastya Dontsova, Irina Skrinichenko, Veronica Skugina

• IMDB Film Info
• www.rusalkafilm.ru/main/

Written especially for young Russian actress Masha Shalayeva, Mermaid conjures up a seaside fairy tale mixed with the darker elements of an unrequited urban romance. The story starts with Alisa as a small tot, growing up on the shores of the Black Sea. With only her raunchy, man-chasing mother and her feeble grandma for companions, she grows up adventurous and independent, but stubborn to the point of refusing to speak for a decade after her mother denied her ballet lessons. She discovers, however, the possibility that she can make her wishes come true with a kind of telekinesis. Finally fed up with her mother, she causes their beachfront shack to blow down in a storm, and the family moves from the picturesque fantasy of the sea to the dreariness of a concrete high-rise in the city. It is there that the teenager meets a young, stylish businessman (he sells, or tries to sell, plots on the moon) whose own despair and loneliness proves compelling to Alisa. Laced with magical realism and “a wonderfully oddball sensibility, happily lost in reverie, faultlessly embodied by an outstanding mîse-en-scene, and of course by the luminous Masha Shalayeva…. Certainly a level of tenable comparison can – and has to – be made to Amélie; however, make no mistake: here Melikian carves a darker tale of whimsy, rippled by a distinct undercurrent of melancholy not seen in its French counterpart. The results are beautiful and resonant in every way.” – Edinburgh Film Festival. Winner, 2008 FIPRESCI Prize, Berlin; 2008 Independent Camera, Karlovy Vary; 2008 World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award, Sundance Film Festival.

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