Russia-set documentary “Tolyatti Adrift,” which premieres in competition at the Malaga Festival, has debuted its trailer with Variety. The first feature-length work by Spanish director Laura Sisteró is being sold internationally by Prague-based Filmotor (excluding Spain and France).
“Tolyatti Adrift” examines life in the Russian city of Tolyatti, once the symbol of socialist pride and home of the famed Lada automobile (currently manufactured by Renault-owned AvtoVAZ), but now known as Russia’s Detroit. Sisteró explores the lives of three teenagers, Slava, Misha and Lera, as they struggle to survive in the city while facing the challenges of adulthood and the prospects of a dystopian future.
In this desperate atmosphere, a movement known as Boyevaya Klassika arises, bringing together young people who rescue the old iconic Lada cars from the local factory and turn them into an expression of high-octane rebellion.
While the invasion of Ukraine has complicated its release in Russia, the film’s focus on a bleak and destitute city is a timely reminder of what could transpire across the country in the face of massive international sanctions.
“The film team condemns the recent actions in Ukraine while rejecting any military confrontation where the civilian population is affected,” said producer Bernat Manzano of Barcelona-based Boogaloo Films. “In times of turmoil and crisis, ‘Tolyatti Adrift’ offers a vision of the reality of a hopeless and rebellious Russian youth, in one of the cities with the least future prospects in Russia. For now, we have the Russian premiere on hold because of the recent actions in Ukraine.”
Filmotor CEO Michaela Cajkova added: ” ‘Tolyatti Adrift’ is the portrait of Russian Detroit – the city with a very big unemployment rate right now. In the reflection of the current events, most likely this is a picture of a city that would be the future of other cities in Russia, taking into consideration the current sanctions against the country. The story is very relevant.”
In a statement, Sisteró said her work looked at how the rupture of the economic structure and political systems are directly affecting young people and their future. “As a reader of science fiction from the ’60s and ’70s, I think that today we live in that ungraspable written future and I like to look for traces of the dystopia that belongs to us in the present. We are facing a global conflict due to the change of capitalist economic paradigms.”
Following its world premiere in Malaga, “Tolyatti Adrift” will screen at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Reel.
Madrid-based Begin Again Films will release the film theatrically in Spain.
“Tolyatti Adrift” was produced by Boogaloo Films and Paris-based Les Films d’Ici in co-production with Televisió de Catalunya and in cooperation with France Télévisions.
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