Kristina Mikhailova: River Dreams
I close my eyes and think about the film, I have just seen. On my MacBook Pro far away from Berlin, where the premiere was yesterday. I see beauty, pure beauty, in the images and in the way the Kazakh director Kristina Mikhailova has invited/casted girls and young women to be the River Girls of her film. She has gained their trust, they open up for both joyful and vulnerable memories. I open my eyes, I am in a place where there are no rivers, but I am close to an ocean and next to me are amazing trees and flowers. The film makes me enjoy my surroundings and I realize that Kristina Mikhailova has given me an introduction to a Kazahkstan that I know far too little about.
From a woman’s point of view. Through a personalization of the river, giving an inner perspective, as she says at the beginning of the film. There are songs, there are intimate monologues, sometimes you hear the director’s question or comment, there is the river spa, there are different kind of smokes caressing the images and situations, there is a woman who talks about LGBT in the country, there is one who talks about sex and sexuality being a taboo for discussion in the country – and there is a muslim girl school where the teacher says how important it is to raise the girls to be good housewives.
It’s all done without judgement, always out of a curiosity and we are also shown hundreds of factory workers lining up to be filmed, saying “ah, will we be on television…”. Good question, if the film will be on Kazakh television?
The director gets goose-bumps, when she hears a young woman, who has been abroad, state with emotion that “nothing can replace my country”. The editing is superb, after a visit to a yurt, where a woman invites the director to stay for food singing an emotional song, a sequence follows with portraits of girls and young women, they don’t say anything, keeping the rhythm and atmosphere. I am never bored!
Kristina Mikhailova is also conveying dreams and experiences from her own life. A young woman tells about an incident, where a man attacked her, an attempted rape – the director gives us a similar story. And there are sequences, where domestic violence is touched upon, abuse.
Amazing film. Super-talented director. Produced by Dana Sabitova, chapeau for her as well…
Kazakhstan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, 2026, 99 mins.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️❤️
