Russian “fast and furious”, showing the frustration of young people against Putin

Togliatti is the poorest city in Russia. It was not always so. Decades ago it was a symbol of progress and pride in the Soviet Union. It was the nerve center of the entire automotive industry, and the Lada, the car that became the communist icon, was produced there. It was called “Russian Detroit.” Now there is nothing left of this dream. Young people live poorly and seek work. There is no hope. The only future that actually looks like is compulsory military service for men and waitresses for women.

In this context of despair, a teen movement called the Boyevaya Klassika emerged with a force responsible for rescuing old cars from the factory and using them to glide over the frozen landscape. Სახის Fast and furious With a revolt component. They are young people who use this Soviet symbol as a form of protest. Young people like Slava, Misha and Lera, children who were directed by Laura Sistero for a year to make a documentary. Togliatti AdriftWhich is presented at the Malaga Festival.

Sisteró creates a work that is part of the new bets on non-fiction, but works like a “normal” film. There is no sound Is off, Or on-camera screenshots. He follows these young people in daily life and shows his unhappiness, anger towards the future they have been promised with light and it is black. It shows your desires, your desires. How to try to buy a medical certificate that did not go to the army. He is doing this while Putin is selling Russia’s brilliance on television. A radical contrast between what he says and what he sees.

The Catalan director was looking for items for a documentary when he discovered Togliatti’s story. “We went there and met these children who are doing this Drift (Slides). They appeared one day with these beaten cars, painted with graphite. We talked, took photos and realized that there was a movie with this symbol of the car as it is also a symbol that was grown thanks to the factory. A city where people from all over the world walked in the USSR and which was completely abandoned for two generations. “These young people are shouting against this rusty symbol and against that hopeless future,” said the director.

Although the film was shot before the pandemic, it is inevitable that these young people will be disappointed with images of thousands of people demonstrating against Putin after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Also think of the guy you see in the documentary who is forced to serve in the army. The director admits that he introduced the scene of Putin’s speech “in search of contrast with what they live.” “This is a speech at the end of the year where he says that everything is going well, but in the parallel installation we see children who do not know what to do with their lives. It was an important item. In addition, this car is a symbol of the rusty system in the city, which was for the USSR and later abandoned. Somehow Togliatti Adrift It shows Russia that Putin does not want us to see him. When the invasion began, it was unbelievable to think that he had invaded another country in such a way that he could not control himself. All my Russian friends are against it. “They were born with Putin, they are 19 years old and they did not have more opportunities.”

The documentary shows Russia, which Putin does not want us to see. All my Russian friends are against it. They were born with Putin, are 19 years old and have had no opportunity

Laura Sistero
– Კ New director

Laura Sistero first went to Russia seven years ago. The idea of ​​making this documentary came up later, but this time he started reading and informing himself. He did not want it to be the face of a fascinated alien. His idea was to display “the poetics that this machine evokes and change the surrounding paradigm.” I did not want it to be his gaze, but rather to vote for teenagers and bring me to a city where cars are a way of survival for all those young people.

“The review should have been neutral. As a documentary filmmaker, you always have a big internal conflict. I try to keep it that way and not be superstitious. “So I decided to look at this story from the perspective of these children, who found a way to resist in a very difficult situation, and that applies to the characters,” Sittero said. His job was to spend a lot of time with them. He found them in a Facebook group and made another one. “I went to parties with them Drift, I wanted them to feel close to me and understand them. I went there to see which characters could be used for the documentary. They were all wonderful, but I had to look for those whose conflict was related to the history of the city.

One of the distinctive aspects Togliatti Adrift This is its visual section, illuminated by racing on the frozen asphalt and the colored lights of the cars themselves. A pleasure that often interests you is watching a documentary or fiction, which was from the beginning of the project, which is on the blurred edge between the two. “The approach is more fictional,” admits the sister. He interviewed people, asked them about their feelings, what they experienced while driving, and with this information tried to “poetically express what they felt” and to avoid talking chapters, which usually complement documentaries. Note that there are many species Drift: Aggressive, funny, poetic and that his job as a director was to enhance these sensations through slow motion or photography. He is not afraid that his documentary “coexists with a certain poetics of fiction”, because first of all he wants it to have one feature: “to be free”.