Děvočki

Cat, Svetka, Alexa and Helly are teenage girls in Russia. They are interested in the typical things Russian girls do for fun: they discuss which drinks give you the most alcohol for your money, they climb trees, hang around in playgrounds, dance and kiss boys, try to pierce their own navels and experiment with drugs. But they also talk about their ambitions in the grim stairwells of the apartment blocks where they live. They argue about socks, then philosophize deeply about religion, God and forgiveness. And then start fighting about it all. Throughout the film, the camera stays very close to them (right in their sometimes rather splotchy faces). There is no attempt to make anything look good, as this is raw reality and there is no romance when they dance with boys, hampered by their overly long limbs – they stomp along angularly to pounding beats in an anonymous field. Their friendship is based on shared misery, with little room for niceties or empathy. A candid, unpolished window into the lives of marginalized teenagers, trying with and in spite of one another to find a place and a purpose in a society that doesn't care. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)