2025 | Fiction | 100 min. | Russia
One winter day and one night in the lives of a group of friends in their thirties, former classmates. They must overcome everyday obstacles to finally come together and say goodbye to Sasha, who is leaving Moscow for a long time.
Directors Statement
For me, making an auteur film always begins with the feeling that I cannot not express or explore a certain thought or story. Today, filmmakers face many obstacles on the way to realizing their ideas, and the lack of financial support for independent cinema is only one of them. Being in the circumstances I found myself in, I wanted to create a film whose score could be “played” within this restricted reality. Many of the dramaturgical and visual choices were born directly from these limitations. “Solutions” always imply “problems” – both in the lives of the characters and in the reality of producing independent films. Each scene in the film is based on observations I made within my close circle over the past five years. Some may call such an approach “too personal,” but I see it as working with a kind of “document.” My emotional response to what was happening to the people who matter to me became the fuel for starting this film. I believe that representing this “small memory” can, over time, stand alongside the “big memory” and shape how our fragile “here and now” will be seen in the future. The French artist Christian Boltanski once said: “Every person deserves their own museum.” I agree completely. I would be happy if Scenes of Friendly Ties could be seen not only as a film, but also as a museum of a lost generation in their thirties – through the faces of myself and my friends.
Director: Sonya Raisman
Producers: Gosha Tokaev, Pavel Karykhalin, Andrey Manik, Sergey Yakhontov, Vladimir Komarov and Alexander Medvedko
Сast: Mikhail Khuranov, Dasha Kotreleva, Alexander Pal, Maria Karpova, Evgeny Tsyganov, Ruslan Bratov, Sonya Raisman, Igor Tsaregorodtsev and Gosha Tokaev
Studios: Stereotactic Film and Independent Theatre Collective Ozero
