CLOSENESS
Filmfest 2017
OT: TESNOTA
Russia 2017
Original version with English subtitles
(Original: Kabardian, Russian)
German Premiere
Director: Kantemir Balagov
Section: CineVision Competition
1998, Nalchik, the North Caucasus, Russia. 24-year-old Ilana works in her father’s garage to help him make ends meet. One evening, her extended family and friends gather to celebrate the engagement of her younger brother David. Later that night, the young couple is kidnapped, and a ransom demand delivered. In this close-knit Jewish enclave, involving the police is out of the question. How will the family raise the money to save David? Ilana and her parents, each in their own way, will go as far as necessary, whatever the risks to themselves…
Cast: Darya Zhovner, Olga Dragunova, Veniamin Kats, Artem Tsypin, Nazir Zhukov
Credits
Screenplay: Kantemir Balagov, Anton Yarush
Director of Photography: Artem Emelianov
Film Editor: Kantemir Balagov
Production Designer: Alexey Paderin
Sound: Andrey Nikitin
Producer: Nikolay Yankin, Edward Pichugin, Alexander Sokurov
Production Company: Example of Intonation, Alexander Sokurov's Fund Lenfilm
World Sales: Wild Bunch
Director: Kantemir Balagov
biography
Kantemir Balagov was born Nalchik, Russia in 1991. He majored in Economics at University of Stavropol and transferred to the University of Nalchik 2011, where Alexander Sokurov had just founded a film department. Balagov made his first film 2013 with 40-minute STILL YOUNG, followed by short doc ANDRYUKHA 2014 about a young man coming down with schizophrenia. CLOSENESS is his first dramatic feature, and won the Critic's Prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes.
