A brilliant observational documentary filmed at the Civil Registry office in St. Petersburg, where people come to have births, marriages, divorces and deaths registered. 'It’s like a theatre here', one says in the beginning of the film, and it indeed is, the Theater of Life. The young women working in the office have a job that shifts from being verbally attacked and called idiots, to situations where they are subject to flirt, or where they master the happy ceremony of marriage. Faces, joy, sorrow, fun, despair... It’s all very well composed, rhythmical, with atmosphere conveyed, and lives up to what a documentary should be: multilayered and universal. And about Life.
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Alina Rudnitskaya Director · Alexander Filippov Cinematographer Larisa Solovtsova Editor
First release June 29, 2005 · Produced in Russia · Original title Гражданское состояние
Production
Studio Lendoc
Production
Russia
Produced in
Languages
Original title
Гражданское состояние
Original language
Russian
Spoken on screen
Russian
Release dates
Russia · June 29, 2005
Premiere · Moscow International Film Festival
No release date listed for United States.
Germany
May 9, 2006 · Premiere · Oberhausen International Short Film Festival
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