Ayka

Hours after becoming mother of a baby boy, Ayka escapes out of the window of the birth clinic somewhere in Moscow, and out into the city. In a style that echoes the Belgian Dardenne brothers, particularly Rosetta, the film follows Ayka through the grey and windy city streets. We learn that she works in a poultry factory, that she is broke and in debt, and that she is from Kyrgystan and has no work permit in Russia. Most importantly, we learn that she is in bad health after having given birth. The kind of security and welfare of mothers that we almost take for granted in our society, is not available for Ayka.

This is a strong and heart-wrenching film with Samal Jesliyaamova delivering a tour de force performance in the titular role. Ayka is both a universal story about in mother who desperately wants to take care of her child but is unable to, and a specific narrative about immigrants in contemporary Russian society. CFO

Sergei Dvortsevoy (b. 1962) is a director and screenwriter born in the USSR Kazakh republic. He has previously directed several documentaries and shorts, but is best known for his fiction feature film Tulpan, which plays out in Kazakhstan and won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes in 2008.