Pavel BARDIN Павел БАРДИН Pavel BARDINE   Russia, 2008, 104 mn  Colour, fiction

Russia 88 ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Россия 88    Russie 88  Rossiya 88

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Plot synopsis

A docudrama about Russian neo-Nazis based on real events that makes use of authentic interviews. At the centre of the fictional story is a group of Moscow skinheads called “Russia 88” which makes propaganda videos and posts them on the internet. Their leader calls himself “Blade”. One day he finds out that his sister is seeing a boy from the Caucasus. Something that begins as a family drama evolves into a tragedy that is justifiably reminiscent of “Romeo and Juliet”.
Pavel Bardin’s film focuses on a phenomenon that, although largely ignored in the West, is very much a part of everyday life in Moscow. The director was able to order most of the Nazi gear worn by the film’s protagonists from an internet website. T-shirts bearing nationalistic slogans like “I’m a Russian”, or quotes from David Lane, a Nazi ideologist and the author of “Fourteen Words”, are freely available for purchase in Moscow. Even the radical rightwing songs that can be heard in the film were easily found in “Gorbushka”, a well-known media store specialising in illegal products. The texts de - claimed to-camera by the balaclava-clad “Blade” originated from ultra-rightwing internet forums; in addition, the murders, pogroms and terrorist attacks mentioned in the film are not the product of the director’s fantasy – they are all to be found in police reports from Vladivostok, St. Petersburg and many other cities in Russia.
Source : www.berlinale.de

 

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Commentaries and bibliography

Pavel Bardin : Russia-88 (Rossiia-88, 2009), Petre PETROV, kinokultura.com, 2009

 

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Selected in the following festivals :

- Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava (Czech Republic), 2012

- Festival of Central and Eastern Film , Wiesbaden (Germany), 2011

- Russian Resurrection Film Festival, Different cities (Australia), 2010

- Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava (Czech Republic), 2010

- Film festival of Russia and CIS countries, Tbilisi (Georgia), 2010

- Festival Russian kino 'Moscow Premier Screenings', Moscow (Russia), 2010

- Göteborg International Film Festival, Göteborg (Sweden), 2010

- World Film Festival, Montreal (Canada), 2009

- Helsinki International Film Festival, Helsinki (Finland), 2009

- Berlin International Film Festival : Berlinale, Berlin (Germany), 2009

- Festival of New Russian Films, Vilnius (Lithuania), 2009

- Documentary and feature film festival ''Kinoteatr.doc'', Moscow (Russia), 2009

- Annual award of the Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics, Moscow (Russia), 2009

- International Film Festival : Pacific Meridians, Vladivostok (Russia), 2009

- Festival Russian kino 'Moscow Premier Screenings', Moscow (Russia), 2009

- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2009

- Window to Europe Film Festival, Vyborg, Vyborg (Russia), 2009

- International Film Festival Tarkovski, Ivanovo (Russia), 2009

- International debut film festival, Khanty Mansiysk (Russia), 2009

- Kyiv International Film Festival 'Molodist', Kiev (Ukraine), 2009

- Russian Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2009

- Russian film symposium. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh (USA), 2009

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Photos and videos

 

 

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