SHAME

In her fashionable blue coat, Lena doesn’t fit into the forbidding grey world of a dilapidated military base in northern Russia. It’s the height of polar winter and the Kola Peninsula a snowy wasteland. Lena is the new wife of a submarine officer who’s away at sea on a secret mission. Back at the base, the wives waiting for the return of their husbands form a close-knit community. They spend a lot of time reassuring each other that the submarine crew will come to no harm; some women even offer sacrifices to the sea in the hope of placating its wrath. Lena alone seems indifferent to the fate of the man she married only recently – and everything else seems to leave her cold as well. As an outsider she enjoys greater freedom and independence than the others, who soon begin to eye her with suspicion and envy. Nobody knows that Lena is preoccupied with a troubled past. When bad news arrives about the submarine, Lena makes a discovery that persuades her to break out of her isolation. Yusup Razykov’s new film is an atmospherically dense drama with stunning images of icy wastes seemingly stretching into infinity.

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YUSUP RAZYKOV
Born 1957 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Studied screenwriting at VGIK Moscow. As head of the Uzbekfilm studios in Tashkent from 1990 to 2004, he made more than a hundred films and television series. STYD / SHAME is his third film to compete at goEast, following on from DILHIROJ / THE MEN’S DANCE in 2002, and O'RTOQ BOYKEJAYEV / COMRADE BOYKENZHAYEV in 2004. STYD received the FIPRESCI Prize at Karlovy Vary in 2013.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTION)
1998 / VOIT / ORATOR
2001 / DILHIROJ / THE MEN’S DANCE
2002 / O'RTOQ BOYKENJAYEV / COMRADE BOYKENZHAYEV
2003 / LEKAR / THE HEALER
2004 / DEVICIY PASTUCH / THE SHEPHERD
2006 / BEGLJANKI / THE FUGUTIVES
2009 / GASTARBAITER / THE GASTARBEITER
2013 / STYD / SHAME