Roman BALAIAN
Роман БАЛАЯН
Roman BALAIAN
Ukraina, 2008, 94mn 
Colour, fiction
Birds of Paradise
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Райские птицы

 

 Les Oiseaux de paradis

 Rayskie ptici

 
Directed by : Roman BALAIAN (Роман БАЛАЯН)
Writing credits : Rustam IBRAGIMBEKOV (Рустам ИБРАГИМБЕКОВ)
 
Cast
Oxana AKINSHINA (Оксана АКИНЬШИНА) ...Katia
Andrey KUZICHEV (Андрей КУЗИЧЕВ) ...Serguei
Egor PAZENKO (Егор ПАЗЕНКО)
Oleg YANKOVSKY (Олег ЯНКОВСКИЙ)
 
Cinematography : Bogdan VERZHBITSKY (Богдан ВЕРЖБИЦКИЙ)
 
format : 35 mm

Plot synopsis
The action of the film takes place in the early 80s in USSR. The times of the public mass prosecutions seem to be over by now, but still it is forbidden to listen to the foreign radio stations, and people still feel unsafe talking to strangers about what they really think. Every knock on the door still makes people nervous. People only dare to say the truth in their own homes, sitting on a kitchen with the curtains shut up. And still there are typewritten books of the so called samizdat, which people only risk to give to the tried and true friends, scared of the prosecutions that might follow. KGB monitors telephone lines, spying on politically unreliable citizens, trying to annihilate every nonconformist thought. The heroes of the film are destined to make a stand against the cruel government machine, to risk their lives and to prove that nothing can stop the human being on his way to freedom.
 

Commentaries and bibliography
L’année de la crise : un regard sur le cinéma russe 2008-2009, Yelena KVASOVA-DUFFORT, kinoglaz.fr, 2009
Roman Balaian : Birds of Paradise (Raiskie ptitsy, 2008), Andrey SHCHERBENOK, kinokultura.com, 2009
Talgat Asyrankulov and Gaziz Nasyrov : Birds of Paradise (Žymak kystary [Raiskie ptitsy], 2006), Seth GRAHAM, kinokultura.com, 2007
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Yerevan International Film Festival "Golden Apricot", Yerevan (Armenia), 2011
- Tbilisi International Film Festival, Tbilisi (Georgia), 2010
- Marseille Russian Film Festival in Toursky, Marseille (France), 2009
- Russian Film Festival, Riga (Latvia), 2008
- International Film Festival : Pacific Meridians, Vladivostok (Russia), 2008
- International Film Festival of the Commonwealth Countries "Moscow Premiere", Moscow (Russia), 2008