Monday, March 20, 5:00pm -7:30pm
College of Education (COED) #010, UNC Charlotte Main Campus
Director Anna Melikyan
Russia, 2007, 100 min
In Russian with English subtitles
Sponsors: CENTRAL PARTNERSHIP Film Company (Russia) and the Russian Club at UNC Charlotte.
Discussion led by Kate Skorodinskaya, lecturer in Russian studies, will follow the screening.
Mermaid is a Russian 2007 comedy-drama. It is a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
Lonely little girl Alisa grows up in a sea side village believing she has the power to make wishes come true. She must reconcile this belief with reality when, as a teenager, she journeys to Moscow and her fairy tale world will collide head-on with the realities of love, innocence and material life in modern Russia. This film was a box office success in Russia, won numerous awards and was selected as Russia’s official submission to Foreign-Language Film category for the 2009 Academy Awards.
Awards:
Best actress Mariya Shalayeva, Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007
Best actress Mariya Shalayeva, “NIKA” Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2008
Directing Award (World cinema) Anna Melikyan, Sundance Film Festival(USA), 2008,
First prize Yerevan International Film Festival “Golden Apricot”, Yerevan (Armenia), 2008
First prize Sofia International Film Festival, Sofia (Bulgaria), 2008
FIPRESCI Prize, Panorama, Berlin International Film Festival: Berlinale, Berlin (Germany), 2008
Audience Award Days of Russian cinema in Limoges, Limoges (France), 2008
“… Mermaid is filmed in a meticulously quirky style full of remarkably framed shots, and alternating between a vibrant, saturated color palate and washed out shots of dark interiors…”
Chip Crane, KinoKultura
“…The film’s portrayal of a society continuously engaged in self-presentation, its members leading their lives as theatrical performances staged in order to sustain illusions of status, power, and happiness.”
Mihaela Mihailova, KinoKultura
