Director and script writer Svitlana Lishchynska’s documentary A Bit of a Stranger has been selected to Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. In her documentary she explores her own familys four generations of women and their relation to the USSR era and the impact of the russification.
The film’s director, Svitlana, was born in Mariupol during the USSR. She explores the experiences of four generations of women in her family, including herself, to see how Moscow’s longstanding imperial policies have stripped them of their true national identity. Each new generation in Svitlana’s family is more Russified than the last. Russia’s full-scale invasion is shattering the Russian component of their identity and forcing them to find another. Svitlana’s daughter flees to London with her child, where she is experiencing an existential crisis. Svitlana’s mother despite the loss of her home in Mariupol, calmly parted ways with the Soviet-Russian past. Svitlana explores the colonised part of her own consciousness in an attempt to answer the question: how Soviet totalitarianism and russification impacted on relationships in her family.
Producer: Anna Kapustina, Albatros Communicos Film Production. In co-production with: Fredrik Lange, Vilda Bomben Film, and Film i Väst.
