Vasili SIGAREV Василий СИГАРЕВ Vassili SIGAREV   Russia, 2012, 119 mn  Colour, fiction

Living ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Жить    Vivre  Zhit

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Plot synopsis

It is already a challenge to make a film on death and call it Living. But Sigarev fearlessly gets to the very heart of things, where life, death, God, love and the imagination form an indestructible whole. A harsh and sometimes brutal experience, but catharsis will follow.
Source : filmfestivalrotterdam.com

 

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Commentaries and bibliography

Vasilii Sigarev: Living (Zhit’, 2012), Julian GRAFFY, kinokultura.com, 2012

 

Vasily Sigarev's second feature, after his acclaimed Wolfy, is an existential portrait of protagonists living in a wintry Russian province. A mother wants to reunite with her twin daughters. A young couple marry in church, but immediately after the ceremony, God - or maybe the Devil, or maybe Blind Fate - tests their love in the most brutal way. A boy wants to see his estranged father, despite his mother's violent protests. Each of these characters lives through their own ordeal. Among all the sorrows imaginable, Sigarev focuses on the most devastating: death. Without any sentimentality, but with brutal sincerity, he has made a fiercely personal yet artistically crafted film on the complexity of being. A prominent author of extremely truthful plays written in the tradition of 'new drama', Sigarev takes his art a few steps further by meticulously depicting the bleak routine of everyday life, while at the same time searching for something hidden beneath its surface. He tackles a fundamental question: Is there catharsis in life, and therefore in art? If so, can our sorrows be healed? And if not, how can one escape despair and go on living? An enigma that transforms this 'realistic' film into a universal parable, revealing a mystery and even - in spite of all the bleakness - a miracle.
Source : filmfestivalrotterdam.com

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Selected in the following festivals :

- Lecce European Film Festival, Lecce (Italy), 2013

- Transilvania International Film Festival : TIFF, Cluj Napoca (Romania), 2013

- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2013

- Göteborg International Film Festival, Göteborg (Sweden), 2013

- Yerevan International Film Festival "Golden Apricot", Yerevan (Armenia), 2012

- Festival of Central and Eastern Film , Wiesbaden (Germany), 2012

- Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Thessaloniki (Greece), 2012

- Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 2012

- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2012

- Window to Europe Film Festival, Vyborg, Vyborg (Russia), 2012

- Independant European Film Festival VOICES, Vologda (Russia), 2012

- Festival Russian kino 'Moscow Premier Screenings', Moscow (Russia), 2012

- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2012

- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2012

- International Human Rights Film Festival, Moscow (Russia), 2012

- Annual award of the Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics, Moscow (Russia), 2012

- Festival "Vivat Kino Rossii", St Petersburg (Russia), 2012

- Odessa International Film Festival, Odessa (Ukraine), 2012

- Russian Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2012

- The Times BFI London Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2012

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