Diary

‘How is it possible that my grandmother saw me in her dreams even before my mother got married?’ asks the protagonist of this moving film which follows the everyday life of Larisa. She is a poor middle-aged woman who struggles with a lack of money and a surplus of alcohol. The film vividly depicts the circumstances of life in a post-communist country where pensions are extremely insufficient, old flats are deteriorating and despair is the daily companion of the old and poor. Archival footage and black-and-white photographs take us on a journey through the past, from the Stalinist era to the post-Soviet and transitional periods, arriving in the present tense of Larisa. In this docudiary the camera is totally invisible. The characters behave in amazingly free and open ways, even in their quarrels, drunken fights, misery and humiliation. It is this truthful element which keeps the film’s suspense growing. In the end, demolition hovers over the entire neighbourhood around the building where Larisa’s granddaughter lives with her alcoholic husband and her three loving cats. —International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam