Film Selection
White Mama / Белая мама
Аlina Makarova is a mother of six children, five of her own and one adopted. Her ex-husband is from Ethiopia, which is why all her own children are of mixed origin. Only her adopted son is white, but he is psychologically unstable. Alina’s older children realise what complications the adoption might bring, and are afraid that there won’t be enough room, time and love for everyone. But she convinces them that it’s the right thing. The new boy really turns their life into trouble. Alina shows miraculous patience and pedagogical talents. Her children become her allies in raising the new son. This film is an epic panorama of a fight for love, an ode to motherhood.
Evgeniya Ostanina graduated from Rostov University, where she received PhD and afterwards lectured in philosophy. She later participated as an editor in several famous Russian documentary projects, including The Term (2014), Kiev/Moscow (2015), How Big Is the Galaxy? (2018), as well as the web documentary project Reality (2013). White Mama is her full-length directorial debut.
Zosya Rodkevich was born in Moscow, where she graduated from Marina Razbezhkina’s School of Documentary Filmmaking. She was acclaimed for her documentary Winter Go Away (2012). Zosya’s first full-length film My Friend Boris Nemtsov (2016) was named Best Documentary at the Kraków film festival.
In Between / Në Mes
Brothers and sons who live abroad build identical houses to express equality and unity in the family. An empathetic portrait of families which, by economic necessity, need to live much of their lives separated, in cultures not their own.
Samir Karahoda started as a photography apprentice in 1992, later to graduate from the Department of Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, , where he is now a postgraduate candidate. As a successful photographer behind many unique photography projects, Samir crafted himself into cinematography. He was behind the lens of several award-winning short and feature-length Kosovar films. In addition, Samir is also a short film programmer at DokuFest, Kosovo’s major film festival and one of the most important in the Balkan region. He is regularly invited to curate short film programmes on and from the Balkans for film festivals all over the world. In Between is a short documentary film inspired by an early photography project. This is also his directorial debut.
Show time & place
Sievierodonetsk,
7B, Gagarina st.
