Missing Girls / Missing Girls

Credits

Vadim Vitovtsev

Director
04/22/1981

Biography

Born in 1981, in the Strugi Krasnie village. Having Philosophy as his first education (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia), then he studied cinema producing, TV and multimedia in the Litovchin Institute of Television and Radio. In 2008 started working on the television making documentaries and TV programs. His film Small People. Big Trees (2016) took part in more 30 festivals around the world.

Filmography

Frantz Josef Land. The Archipelago of the Melting Ever-Frost, 2013; Extinct People, 2014; Amur Leopard. A Race for Taiga Throne, 2015; Amur Tiger. A Road to the Sacred Mountain, 2016; Small People. Big Trees, 2016.

Directors Statement

A few words on the specifics of camera work. We used live filming in Mumbai city space to communicate the anxiety and dangerous nature of the places that our heroine visits. Also Mumbai is the most densely populated city on Earth. In that context live filming is just the right thing. Because here life runs high — and runs over the top, the overall tempo of life and death here is unbelievably rapid. That’s why we only used live filming, no static shots and no “talking head” shots, of course. The rhythm is totally different in the village. There the heroes themselves are passive. It is difficult to get them talking. And even if they speak on camera — it is always men who talk here, as women in rural India are denied the right to speak. Due to the specific nature of the topic that the documentary touches upon, men in the film are extremely reserved in showing their emotions and in the words they utter. Masculine characters only relax (ever so slightly) in the scene of uncle and Kushi going to the market (and also in the moonshine drinking scene). As for the ladies — we do not hear their voices at all, and that’s not by chance. Women in India do not have the right of speaking their mind – or speaking at all. We saw that for ourselves when we tried to record an interview with Kushi’s grandmother, her mother and her aunt. They declined our invitation every time – and quite adamantly. Once Kushi’s mother agreed to an interview — but we had a feeling she was repeating on camera the phrases she memorized by heart and that this text was given to her by her husband. The only true interview we had was with Kushi. But even that became possible only during our third visit to Rajasthan, and not on our earlier visits. This only happened when Kushi got used to us and started perceiving us as some kind of relatives. Only then did she tell us (on camera — and that was her first and only interview) that she wants to become a doctor. Before that Kushi was always replying with the same phrase: “the way my father decides is the way it will be”. That’s why here we could say that we used a deep observation method to have our heroes disclose their inner self after a lot of communication.