Section: Spotlight: Ukraine

SASHENKA

SASHENKA

Alexander Zhovna
UA, 2022, 135 Min

The Soviet Union under Brezhnev. A married couple is shot dead in a Ukrainian village. The wheelchair-bound son, raised as a girl by his parents, is left an orphan. The film noir with clear Hitchcock motifs immerses the audience in a family whose relationships were built on violence, the distorted psyche of the main character and the equally dark atmosphere of the stagnation period.

Sashenka was born a man but brought up as a girl. His strict and reserved mother dreamed of a daughter, so she started dressing her son in girlish clothes and addressing him with feminine pronouns. His father, passionately in love with his wife, did not dare to contradict her. For any disobedience, Sashenka was severely punished. His torment ended only when a mysterious murderer broke into the house and stole his father's shotgun. The investigation sheds light on the whole tragedy of a family whose relationships were built on oppression and violence. Ukrainian writer and director Olexandr Zhovna has worked as an educator for many years, but his new film describes more than just an isolated case of deviance. The disintegration of the protagonist's personality in this slow-motion black-and-white thriller acts as a mirror for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Behind the scenes, propaganda news is constantly running and the characters are stuck in a vicious circle of violence in which the fight against any monster that tramples on human life and dignity is doomed to failure from the start - because the victor becomes a monster himself.

Text: Ksenia Reutova

 

The film will be shown in the original language with English subtitles and simultaneously translated into German. Headphones are available free of charge against a deposit in the cinema foyer.

Drehbuch
Alexander Zhovna
Kamera
Sergey Kolbinev
Darsteller
Milena Kompaniiets
Dmitry Orlov
Dmitryi Nezhelskyi
Oxana Burlay-Piterova
Viktor Rybchinskiy
Produzent
Alexander Zhovna, Evgeny Sivkov
Produktion
CINEMASTUDIO
Alexander Zhovna

Alexander Zhovna - Born in 1960, he is a member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine and of the National Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine. He is also a Honored Artist of Ukraine (2008).

Movies
2019 Liza’s Tale
2014 My Dear Ukrainians, 2014 (short, documentary)
2007 Small life (Short)
1997 Massacre (short, documentary)
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