25° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL

Aleksandra

Alexandra
by Aleksandr Sokurov
Country: Russia, France
Year: 2007
Duration: 92'


Chechen Republic, present day. Russian troop positions. Alexandra Nikolaevna is a grandmother who has come to see her grandson, one of the best officers in his unit. She will spend a few days here, and will discover a new world. In this male world there are no women, no warmth or comfort. Daily life is meagre, people are shy of their feelings here. Or maybe there simply isn’t time or energy for feelings. Every day and every hour questions of life and death are decided here. And yet is still a world populated by people.

“For me this story is not about the actual but about the eternal. Not about present-day Russia, its policies in the Caucasus, its army, but about the eternal life of Russia. War is always a terrible thing. In this film about war there is no war. I don’t like war feature films. There is no poetry in war, no beauty and it should never be filmed poetically. Our film is a work of fiction, not a political act. In the film, we are looking for ways to bring people together, and we find them.”

Biography

film director

Aleksandr Sokurov

Alexander Sokurov (Podorvicha, Russia, 1951) studied cinema at VGIK in Moscow but left before completing his studies because of contrasts with the Goskino. In 1980 he began working at Lenfil’m, but only after perestroika could the films he made during this period be seen, like his debut film The Lonely Voice of Man (1978). In 1985 he inaugurated the series of Elegies and in the 1990’s he experimented with digital technology in A Humble Life (1997) and Dolce (1999). He received world-wide recognition with Mother and Son (1997), Moloch (1999), Russian Ark (2002), The sun (2005). In 2003 the Torino Film Festival dedicated a complete retrospective to his work.

FILMOGRAFIA

filmografia essenziale/
essential filmography
Odinokiy golos cheloveka (The Lonely Voice of Man, 1978), Razˇalovannyj (Degraded, cm, 1980), Dni zatmenija (The Days of Eclipse, 1988), Spasi i sochrani (Save and Protect, 1989), Krug vtoroj (The Second Circle, 1990), Kamen’ (The Stone, 1992), Tichie stranicy (Whispering Pages, 1993), Mat’i syn (Madre e figlio, 1997), Moloch (id., 1999), Dolce (1999), Telec (Taurus, 2001), Russkij kovˇceg (Arca russa, 2002), Otec i syn (Father and Son, 2003), Mozart Requiem (doc., 2004), Solnze (Il sole, 2005), Eleghia zhizni. Rostropoviˇc. Vishnevskaya (2006), Aleksandra (id., 2007).

Cast

& Credits

regia, sceneggiatura/director, screenplay Aleksandr Sokurov
fotografia/director of photography Aleksandr Burov
scenografia/set design Dmitri Maliˇc-Konkov
costumi/costume design Lidiya Kryukova
montaggio/film editor Sergei Ivanov
musica/music Andrei Sigle
suono/sound Vladimir Persov
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Galina Vishnevskaija (Aleksandra), Vasili Shevtsov (Denis), Raisa Gichaeva (Malia), Andrei Bogdanov, Aleksandr Kladko, Aleksei Nejmijshev, Rustam Shahgireev, Evgeni Tkachuk
produttore/producer Andrei Sigle
produzione/production Proline Film, Rézo Productions
coproduttore/coproducer Laurent Daniélou
distribuzione/distribution Eskimo
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