Russian Dream

After living in Saint Petersburg for 20 years, a scholar of Slavic culture named Marina Albee decides to take a trip inland in her old Volga. She goes in search of the “heart of Russia” on a road movie that implements everything from fairy-tale to music video styles. When her car breaks down, she continues her journey hitchhiking with truck drivers and finds herself at traditional festivities, remote farms in snow-covered forests, and romantic churches and palaces – all of which contrasts starkly with the waterlogged highways and shabby teahouses that she also encounters along the way. In the first part of the film, Albee looks back on what the past has brought her; in the second she turns her gaze to the future. What is it that Russians need to be happy? She occasionally speaks in voice-over, musing on Russian history and the spirit of the country and its inhabitants, but most of the time she lets the film and music do the talking. She takes a snow bath with a bearded man living in the woods who tells her about his esoteric relationship with nature – but it turns out that he has a surprisingly modern job. Is this the new Russian lifestyle? The assortment of film styles and atmospheres perfectly capture the disorienting diversity of a Russia that is romantic, tough, nature-loving, businesslike, poor and rich. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)