GRAD
Germany/Russia, 2004
16mm, color, stereo, 22 min.
GRAD reflects female perspectives on the experiences of a community that has lost its motherland thirteen years after the implosion of the Soviet Union. Valya, the protagonist, goes on walks with her gang of girlfriends in post-communist St. Petersburg, annexing unknown, derelict, and ostensibly lost areas of the city. Staged as psychogeographic landscapes, the houses, streets, underground tunnels, and marginal neighborhoods are part of a tour guided by a hypnotic exkursavod figure. During a communal foray, the girlfriends encounter the doubles of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Adolf Hitler, and Chuck Norris, three emblematic figures of past ideologies of the twentieth century. Unimpressed by these tired ‘heroes,’ Valya lets the three men tell her about their real lives, where the political and private are inextricably intertwined. The birthday meal with her mother and her three adopted sisters ends in a fiasco when the youngest among them—her real sister—challenges her mother’s recollections of the gulag. Just as the doppelgangers fall out of character, the compatriots successively lapse in their solidarity. GRAD is a post-ideological film about three generations of millennial women in Russia.Cast and Crew:
Excursavod: Jo-Anna Hamann
Valya: Valya Mosolkova
Tanya: Tanya Sakharova
Anya: Anya Zajetseva
Lena: Lena Satkova
Mother: Ludmilla A. Golikova
Younger Sister: Masha Neumoin
Lenin: Alexander N. Gudkov
Hitler: Eduard Kapraevitz
Chuck Norris: Juri Merkulin
Man: Igor Jakolev
Milk Vendor: Marina Tumanova
Female Soldier: Marina Tarasova
Directed by: Lene Markusen
Written by: Lene Markusen, Maren Grimm
Camera Operator: Bettina Herzner
Sound: Jens Röhm
Electrician: Tim Kaiser, Felix Grimm
Production: Lene Markusen, Maren Grimm, Olga Slavina Assistant: Tatjana Rothe, Jan Schreiber
Costumes: Alica Ryabova
Make-up: Dasha Bukreyeva
Translation: Florida van Rennings, Lene Markusen
Literary Consultation: Olga Slavina
Montage: Florian Leidenberger
Sound Design & Music: Jens Röhm
Title Design: Tim Kaiser
Funded through Contributions of: Kulturbehörde Hamburg,
Michael und Susanne Liebelt Stiftung, Freundeskreis der Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg
Karl H. Ditze StiftungThis film is in featured in the book Sisters Alike. Female Identities in the Post-Utopia