In a Russia in turmoil, Masha begins to prepare to leave the country in the spring of 2022. Farewells become more frequent. Her mother is dying of cancer, her lover is fleeing the draft and her former self seems to be disintegrating. To cope with the pain, she begins to film. Anger and grief lead her into inner exile - into the underground scene that is the last refuge for many young Russians. A multi-layered self-portrait emerges from snapshots, fragments and observations, capturing the fragmentation of a personality in the mirror of social implosion.
DIRECTOR
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Masha Chernaya
Farewell, separation, departure. These are the themes that Masha Chernaya has explored in her films to date. Young men in their late teens bid farewell to their youth, for example in FOR THE ABSENT LADY (2023). In DAS FLIESST IN MEINEM BLUT (2022), friends part at the end of the summer to return to their respective everyday lives, and in KRIVOLUCHYE (2019), Andrej and Oksana search for answers to the question: Why leave, why stay? In SHARDS (2024), Masha Chernaya continues this search and makes herself the protagonist.
Masha Chernaya grew up in Tula, 200 kilometres south of Moscow. Her parents were writers who met at the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute, which Masha attended after studying journalism at Lomonosov University and before graduating from the Dokdokdok School of Modern Photography. Masha Chernaya lives in Moscow.
