OUR OWN

August 1941: German troops keep advancing even further into the East. During a march towards the prison-camp, three Russian prisoners manage to escape: Tolja, a KGB-officer, Lifshits, a Jewish political officer and Mitja, a sharpshooter. Mitja comes from the area occupied by the Germans – which is why the three are in their home-country and in enemy territory at the same time. They seek shelter with Mitja’s father Ivan (played by the well-known Ukrainian actor Bogdan Stupka), who – having returned from a work-camp – now collaborates with the Germans and does not hide his anti-soviet leanings. Nevertheless, he hides the three, because they “belong to us” – but the soldiers are faced with a lot of pressure, because the local police, puppets in the hands of the Germans, is looking for them and arrests Ivan’s daughters to force their surrender. Films set in World War II were an established genre of the Soviet cinema, with nationalistic undertones and clear fronts. SVOI, which won the main award at last year’s Moscow Film Festival, takes a different path: the three escapees are no heroes – they are only concerned with their daily survival. SVOI concentrates on showing the effects of war on people who are forced to make decisions and compromises. The film – grainy with washed-out colours – paints a complex picture of a Soviet Union under German occupation where the lines between friend and foe, good and evil have shifted.