USA
1997, 16mm, Color and B&W, 8O min.
Director: Rebecca Feig
Producers: Rebecca Feig, Mitchell Rosenbaum
Cinematographer: Mitchell Rosenbaum
Editor: Daisy Wright
Music: Original Russian folk music
Rebecca Feig's Bye-Bye-Babushka looks at older women in Russia today, women
who were born in the wake of the 1917 revolution, came of age during
Stalin's reign, and have survived to see the disintegration of their
"motherland." The women interviewed range from a collective farm worker who
knows little of politics to a member of the intelligentsia whose husband was
arrested and "disappeared". Their compelling, often wildly divergent
testimony encompasses the struggle and passion that was Russia in the 20th
century. Interspersed with the interviews are excerpts from propaganda
films-stirring historical recreations, documentaries of women farm workers,
and communist youth demonstrations. "One can sense immediately that this
film is different. This is the result of something implacable, something
that draws you in, a certain knowing quality in its perspective which
achieves grace."(Le Monde)
|