Crystal Swan (2018)
3.6 of 5 from 46 ratings
1h 35min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Set in Belarus in the mid-90's, a place which is finding life difficult economically outside the Soviet Union, torn between old and new, East and West. It opens in Minsk in 1996, just a few years after independence. One of those keen to fly the newly post-Soviet roost is 22-year-old Velya (Alina Nasibullina). Despite a law degree, she's unemployed and with no interest in practicing ("where do you see the law here?" she asks at one point, not unreasonably). Rather, she's a DJ, intent on moving to Chicago, the birthplace of House music. Velya is introduced as resplendently blue-wigged, first berated on a bus by men with personalities still mired in the dark ages, then in her element - dancing at her decks in a nightclub, as a statue of Lenin towers behind her. Though the archive footage in Zhuk's own mix could be more impactful, the director quickly establishes the cultural context: a country finding life difficult economically outside the Soviet Union, torn between old and new, East and West. Those tensions also exist at home. Velya's mother (Svetlana Anikey), who works in a Belarus history museum, is one of the many who wouldn't dream of leaving "the motherland". There's no sign of her husband, Velya's father, and the two woman can't stand each other; lack of familial love quietly simmers beneath Velya's story... - Actors:
- Alina Nasibullina, Ivan Mulin, Yuriy Borisov, Svetlana Anikey, Ilya Kapanets, Anastasia Garvey, Lyudmila Razumova, Natalya Onishenko, Anatoliy Golub, Artem Kuren, Vyacheslav Shakalido, Guy V. Cimbalo, Husky
- Directors:
- Darya Zhuk
- Producers:
- Valery Dmitrotchenko, Birgit Gernböck, Olga Goister, Debbie Vandermeulen
- Writers:
- Darya Zhuk, Helga Landauer
- Aka:
- Khrustal
- Genres:
- Drama
- Countries:
- Belarus
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