ACF
Asian Cinema Fund
Script Development Fund
2019 Script Development Fund
LIST A Pair of Leather Clogs
| Category | AFA Project |
|---|---|
| Project | A Pair of Leather Clogs |
| Director | Olga KOROTKO |
| Country | Kazakhstan |
| Director's Profile | Olga Korotko started to study filmmaking with a course of an arthouse director Darezhan Omirbayev, with whom she later created Reverences, a film-research on the history of cinema. In 2011 she was selected for Asian Film Academy and in 2013 she shot a short film Dove On The Roof which was selected to more than 20 film festivals. In 2016 she was selected to Berlinale Talents Campus and in 2017, she shot a documentary film in support of women’s rights House of Mothers. In 2018 she finished her first feature Bad Bad Winter which premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2018 (Acid Cannes). |
- Synopsis
- Saniya (61) is an elderly homeless woman who is trying to reestablish her relationship with her daughter Vera (42), who she once left behind. Vera works for a government organization, but she strongly condemns the policy of the president and dreams of going abroad. Saniya is taken far beyond the city by authorities in connection with the upcoming Olympics ? the streets are cleaned of homeless. Vera must take on the preparation of a concert in honor of the president. Saniya manages to find money to return to the city. A foreign journalist trys to find evidence of human rights violations in Kazakhstan but breaks his hand. After the concert, Vera expresses her dissatisfaction with politics to the president, but he turns out to be a senile old man. Saniya tries to contact Vera, but she doesn’t want to see Saniya. Saniya sets fire to the Olympic facility and ends up in the hospital where she meets the foreign journalist. Thanks to his article, Saniya and Vera meet.
- Director's Note
- A mother and a daughter became my main characters, and for me, it is very symbolic. The relationship between parent and child is a kind of a metaphor for the relationship between government and the people. After all, the government is a kind of a "parent" for the citizens, and this “parent” can be different - he can be caring and loving, helping the child to become happy, or he can be cold and selfish, and then the child will suffer. The government of Kazakhstan is too young a parent that has not yet realized the value of parenthood and doesn’t yet have enough experience to do things right. The line of mother and daughter will run in parallel, intersecting occasionally. Their lives are very different, but they both face similar absurd situations. They are like a pair of leather clogs from the Van Gogh painting - they are so similar, but also completely different, and their love for each other is the only way to survive in this absurd world.
- Festivals
- Still Cut