TERRITORIES

Passengers from every corner of Russia travel side by side in the third-class carriage of the Trans-Siberian. From the stories that pop up during the ride, the director chooses two: that of a Russian soldier and that of a Chechen going back home. She organises their virtual meeting in the space of the film, which becomes the place where two contradictory perceptions of a same territory at war can express themselves.

Director: Mónica Baptista
Photography: Filip Sycynski
Editing: Mónica Baptista
George Groshkov
Music: Fernando Rodrigues
Sound: Eugene Goryainov

Born of a project (Cinetrain) that brought together twenty young filmmakers who travelled across Russia from Moscow to Vladivostok questioning the limits of Europe, Territories takes place in 3rd class compartment of the famous Trans-Siberian train, where Russians from all walks of life “come together like one big family” says Ocman, who is traveling from Chechnya, his native region where he has spent his vacations, to Irkutsk, where he works. This is also where Grisha, a Muscovite who has been serving in a unit of the Russian army based on the Chechen border, is traveling to. Two people who differ in every respect but are unwittingly united by a territory where “war has become a way of life” and where people use weapons “as readily as mobile phones”. With a camera shaken by the movements of the train, Mónica Baptista listens to two incompatible visions of borders in what has become the former Soviet empire. Thus we note that from the Russian point of view, Chechenya is a land inhabited by savages who must be kept under control…therefore all possibility of a dialogue, as suggested by the sequence in which Grisha and Ocman share the same space while smoking a cigarette without exchanging a word, or a gaze, except when looking at the camera, bears witness to unavoidable separation. (Emmanuel Chicon, in Visions du réel)

2010 Winner of the Prix Visions du Réel for best direction of a short-film

Festival Selections

Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival , Serbia
Mediterranean Festival of New Film-Makers of Larissa, Greece
Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival, Portugal
Lago Film Fest, Italy
Golden Boll International Short Film Competition for Mediterranean Countries, Turkey – Winner of the Jury Special Award for Documentary
São Paulo International Short Film Festival, Brazil
International Istanbul Short Film Festival, Turkey
Ciclo de Cinema, no Centro de Língua Portuguesa na
A4 Screenings, Slovakia
Femina – International Women’s Film Festival, Brazil
International Critic’s Week, Cannes Film Festival, France
Doc’s Kingdom Internacional Seminar on Documentary Film
Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival, Portugal
Ovarvídeo – Festival de Vídeo de Ovar, Portugal
El Mes + Corto – Muestra Audiovisual Luso-Extremeña, Spain
DocLisboa, PORTUGAL
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