(Babusya [en])
Russia / France 2003
d: Lidija Bobrova
Sojuz (Region 0 ru)
sc: Lidija Bobrova
c: Valerij Revič (Color)
e: Tat'jana Bystrova
pd: Pavel Novikov
m: --
p: AndreJ Zercalov (Lenfil'm Studio / 3B Productions)
w: Sergej Anufriev, Vladimir Kulakov, Ol'ga Oniščenko, Anna Ovsjannikova, Nina Šubina
pr: 25 Jun 2003
aw: Copenhagen International Film Festival 2004 Golden Swan Best Screenplay; Jury Special Prize Anna Ovsyannikova for the acting, Nina Shubina for the acting • Cottbus Film Festival of Young East European Cinema 2003 Audience Award; Grand Prize • Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2003 Award of Ecumenical Jury; Don Quijote Award; Special Prize of the Jury • Lecce Festival of European Cinema 2004 Golden Olive Tree • Paris International Cinema Meeting 2003 Audience Award
rt: 95:06 (+4%PAL= 97) min
dvd-rl: 01 Jun 2004
ar: 1.66:1 (4:3 Letterboxed Widescreen)
sd: Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
st: --
supp: --
A doleful treatise on post-communist Russia's dereliction of its old, "Babusja" isn't always subtle (the last act plays somewhere between lugubrious polemic and a bad joke), but it's pretty credible. It's the story of a widowed grandmother, a veteran of the siege of Leningrad, bounced from domestic pillar to post after she loses her old home. It's not that her entire family are grasping materialists or drunken bums, yet fortune doesn't seem to favour the loyal. The story takes a while to find its feet, and it's actually the earlier scenes, casting a wry eye over the quirks of provincial village life in the bleak Russian winter, that are the most intriguing. They also afford some lustrous landscape photography.
— NB, Time Out Film Guide
