Berlin

Coproduction Office have announced they will sell Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel’s DAU. Natasha worldwide.

The first feature film in a series of five DAU features, DAU. Natasha will have its world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival at 10.00pm CET on Wednesday 26 February. Its companion DAU. Degeneration, a work in nine chapters, will screen in Berlin as a Berlinale Special at Haus der Berliner Festspiele on Friday 28 February. DAU. Natasha and DAU. Degeneration, are part of the DAU project by Sergey Adoniev and Ilya Khrzhanovskiy.

Natasha runs the canteen at a secret 1950s Soviet research institute. This is the beating heart of the DAU universe, everyone drops in here: the institute’s employees, scientists and visiting foreign guests. Natasha’s world is a small one, split between the demands of the canteen during the day and alcohol fuelled nights with her younger colleague Olga, during which the two confide their hopes of romance and for a different future. At a party one evening Natasha becomes close to a visiting French scientist Luc Bigé and the two sleep together. The following day her life takes a dramatic turn when she is summoned to an interrogation by the KGB’s General Vladimir Azhippo who questions the nature of her relationship with the foreign guest.

DAU. Natasha is the first feature from Ilya Khrzhanovskiy’s large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system. Created in collaboration with co-director Jekaterina Oertel, cinematographer Jürgen Jürges, and a cast of non-professionals led by Natasha Berezhnaya (Natasha), Olga Shkabarnya (Olga), and Vladimir Azhippo (Azhippo). DAU. Natasha pushes the boundaries in this transgressive depiction of a life that would be completely normal if not for totalitarian use of power.