Personal investigation into the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 by film makers Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya. They filmed at the front lines and compare their images with the official version of the Russian government, which was adopted unquestioningly by the Western media.
When war breaks out in early August 2008 between Russia and Georgia, the film makers Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya head for the front from two sides. Nekrasov approaches the front line from the 'European' South and Konskaya from the 'Russian' North. On the way, they send each other their pictures. In this way, Nekrasov is able to show the refugees he meets in the South pictures of their destroyed villages in the North. But this journey is only the start of Russian Lessons. The directors of this personal investigation into the war juxtapose their visual material with the official version of the Russian government, a version that has been unquestioningly adopted by Western media. In addition, they put the war in the context of post-Soviet Russia, with a central role for the forgotten genocide during the battle in 1993 between Georgia and the still controversial region of Abkhazia.
The film was the directing debut of Olga Konskaya, the partner and cooperator of Andrei Nekrasov, who also acted in his feaure debut Lubov and Other Nightmares (2001). She passed away shortly after Russian Lessons was finished.
PROGRAMMER NOTES
Andrei Nekrasov is the enfant terrible of Russian film making. Comparable to no one else, he is the only one, opposed to the rest, who dares touch the most sensitive (political) themes and dig into their deepest depths. Since his documentary Disbelief, both investigative and poetic, about the terrorist bombings in Russia in 1999 that changed the course of recent Russian history, he has touched another taboo subject in Russia - that of the mysterious death of the Russian government's critic living in London, Alexander Litvinenko. Both films are banned in Russia. His latest film's subject, that was the directorial debut of his partner Olga Konskaya, who was then already terminally ill, is yet another taboo topic in Russia: the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. This is a subject that still requires answers to many questions and has never been seriously investigated before. Andrei and Olga are, however, concentrating on its human stories, and are in great disbelief of what their fellow countrymen can do to another country (they are both in possession of Russian passports). The film is very personal, emotional and sometimes contains unbearable images and stories of the wars in this region.
For more info: http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/blogs/ludmila_cvikova/russian-lessons/
LC