Powerful migrant drama wins Pingyao festival plaudits
“We immerse ourselves in the region and therefore understand the problems much better,” Kazak actress Samal Yeslyamova said at the second Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival held in Shanxi province in China from Oct 11 to 20.
She won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
Her film, Ayka, made its Chinese mainland debut at the Pingyao festival under its “best of fest” section that aims to showcase outstanding films from this year’s major international film festivals for their Asia or China premieres.
Echoing the feminist focus of this year’s Pingyao festival,
Ayka tells the story of the eponymous protagonist, a Kyrgyz illegal migrant in Moscow, who abandons her newborn for survival. According to the film’s director, Sergey Dvortsevoy, statistics suggest 248 babies were abandoned in Moscow hospitals by Kyrgyz mothers in 2010 alone.
As a Russian born in Kazakhstan, he said he understood the importance of family ties in Central Asian culture, rendering it incomprehensible that women should abandon their babies. But while researching the topic of female migrants, Dvortsevoy says he gradually understood the choices the women make.
“These migrants, especially women, come to Moscow fighting for a living. When they live in such hard life conditions, you see that they can do anything for money,” he tells China Daily.
In Ayka, Dvortsevoy presents the dilemma of the protagonist with handheld cameras and long takes. The film is shot chronologically, with two years of preparatory work and four years of actual filming.
“I made changes to the script during (the) shooting,” he says.
Dvortsevoy praises Yeslyamova’s acting. She had worked on his previous film,
the winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard section at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
“Thanks to her, I was able to adopt these changes, because I understand that she can perform difficult scenes,” Dvortsevoy says.
“She can act metaphysically and realistically. You can sometimes feel that she is the real character, because she believes in herself. That’s why she’s a good actress — she knows all the acting techniques, but she doesn’t show them.”
Yeslyamova faced up to the challenges of having no experience of working in factories or childbirth with her passion for acting.
“We spent two weeks training in a factory, with two real workers who were also on screen,” Yeslyamova says of a scene in Ayka that involves plucking a chicken.
“This is a very hard role to play, requiring a lot of time and effort. But if you love act- ing, if you love films, then it’s not so complicated.”
This film features cooperation between Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Germany and Poland.
Wang Luna and Zhu Li from its Chinese distributers, Juben Pictures, decided to invest in
Ayka after watching only the first 15 minutes of the film.
“At first, we were simply overwhelmed by the talent of the director. The story itself also has realistic implications, for the dilemma of Ayka may resonate with young people struggling in first-tier cities (in China),” Wang says.
“Then, we went a bit further than others, with not only investment but also cooperation in its production.”
Dvortsevoy says Chinese producers made the film possible.
“I’m open for this collaboration mode and even thinking about making films here in China.”