Lidiia Bobrova

Born in 1952 in the Russian far east. Graduated from the screenwriting department of the State Filmmaking Institute (VGIK) in 1983. Later studied directing at the Advanced Courses for Screenwriters and Directors, where her teachers included Aleksei German. Bobrova's first film, Oh, You Geese (1991), won several Russian and international awards, including best screenplay at Angers, France, and best debut at the Sochi Film Festival. Her next (and most recent) film, In That Land (1997), met with even greater success on the European festival circuit, winning the peace prize at the Berlin Film Festival and the grand prix at the International Women's Film Festival in Paris. She is general director of the film and video studio Narodnyi (People's) Film in St. Petersburg.

In That Land [V toi strane] (1997)

Running time: 85 min. Russia. Color.
Production: Lenfil'm Studios, Narodnyi Film

The title of Bobrova's prize-winning film refers to the perceived cultural gap between "that land" -- rural, provincial Russia -- and the urban, modernized world familiar to contemporary Russian (and international) film viewers. The film uses many non-actors, playing themselves, in its technically sparse but beautifully composed depiction of the minutiae of communal existence in the real-life northern Russian village of Verkola. Still, this is fiction; narrative lines include a shepherd's tribulations at the hands of his wife and mother-in-law, and a local work foreman's uphill struggle to convince the town's men to drink less.


Director: Lidiia Bobrova
Script: Lidiia Bobrova. Based on the stories of Boris Ekimov
Camera: Sergei Astakhov and Valerii Revich
Art desigen: Gennadii Popov
Music: Gennadii Zavolokin
Producer: Aleksandr Golutva
Cast: Dmitrii Klopov, Vladimir Borchaninov, Anna Ovsiannikova, Aleksandr Stakheev, Andrei Dunaek, Svetlana Gaitan.

Director Filmography:

1989 Adolescence (course project, short)
1991 Oh, You Geese� (diploma film)
1997 In That Land

Bibliography:

Lidiia Bobrova, "Blagopoluchnaia Verkola," Iskusstvo kino 5 (1998), 29-33.
Dimitri Eipides, Review of In That Land, Toronto International Film Festival 1998 catalogue.
T. Iensen, "Byt' da byt'," Iskusstvo kino 5 (1998), 19-29.

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