Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
original title: NEBESNYE ZHENY LUGOVYKH MAR
2012, Russia, 106 min, erotic fairytales, color, DCP
CATEGORIES : Comedy, Erotic Fairytales
COUNTRY: Russia
PRODUCTION : BUDGET : $2 000 000
FESTIVALS & AWARDS
- Best Script Kinotavr 2013
- Rome Film Fest (nominated)
- The Diploma of the Russian Guild of Film Scholars and Film Critics Kinotavr 2013
- Grand Prix - New Horizons International Film Festival 2013
- Best Screenplay - Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2013
- FIPRESCI Prize - goEast 2013
- Student Critics Jury Award - Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013
CAST
Julia Aug, Vasiliy Domrachev, Daria Ekamasova, Olga Dobrina, Yana Troyanova, Olga Degtyarova, Alexandr Ivashkevich, Yana Sexte
CREW
Director : Screenplay : Denis OsokinCinematographer : Shandor Berkeshy
Producers : Dmitry Vorobyev, Alexey Fedorchenko, Mikhail Shchukin, Leonid Lebedev
COMMENTS
Rome Film Festival 2012 – World Premiere
SYNOPSIS
This is a film-pattern, a film-calendar. 22 short stories about women of Mari. A kind of Mari Decameron. Aleksey Fedorchenko: Finno-Ugric peoples – natives of central Russia. There are now the most churches and monasteries. Meadow Mari – one of the largest Finno-Ugric peoples, and the only ones who keep the communal prayer in the groves, naive honoring priests-karts. Their sacred mountain blew, groves were cut down – but very quickly the authorities realized that it is dangerous to life… Celestial brides and wives of the Meadow Mari are indistinguishable from earthly wives.
PRESS
Despite how truly off-kilter it is, the movie does benefit from an impressive technical package, including gorgeous landscape imagery by cinematographer Shandor Berkeshi (who shot Ilya Khrzhanovkiy’s 4, which this movie occasionally recalls), nuanced sound design by Timofei Shestakov (who worked on The Fourth Dimension, which Fedorchenko directed alongsideHarmony Korine) and a score by Andrei Karasyov that provides a few flashes of poetry amid all the outré action. Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter.