KATJA, feature documentary
A wide shot over Kiev, exchanged for various shots of daily business in the city, people everywhere, catching the train, going to work, a man in suit walks with a fancy computer case, dressed up women on a shopping spree, children with their parents licking ice cream. A street child is seen begging and now the cuts are coming faster, another street child is seen sniffing, another fighting, another crying followed by a long zoom shot from a tall building down to a garden fenced in with a 3 meter high barbed wire. Typical local where street kids hang out. A girl of about 12 years, is washing and drying her clothes on a hot water pipe. She’s got long fair hair and stands with a comb in one hand and a bag with glue to sniff in the other, positioned behind a group of boys playing poker on a cardboard table. She is plucking the lice from their hair. Just then the girl looks up towards the lens like she’s thinking what could be up there, suddenly she seems to realize that someone is taking pictures of her, she quickly turns around and yells to the boys who instantly leave their cards and in a split second it seems, the whole group of street children stands below and looks up to the camera with angry eyes. They yell out swearing and show their fists and middle fingers towards the lens. This is the first acquaintance of the director with Katja and the first shot he has of her. The year is 2003.
It is year 2010 and Katja today is the subject of this film which takes place in the present, but constantly reveals the past at the same time. As she talks to us about her life we are frequently taken back in time to see the things she reviews. The director has shot countless hours of material through the years when he has visited her. Katja is a good talker, charming and clever with a great sense of humour and a positive view of life which makes her story not only more bearable but all the more interesting and touching.
Kiev doesn’t have much to offer its poor and homeless civilians, but there are some alternatives. Due to the street children „problem“, quite many independent organizations have been funded and established to deal with this. Places where the children can sleep and eat and even acquire some basic education. Katja has lived in one of those homes for nearly two years till spring 2009. The film touches on this, reveals what motive and aim lies behind this kind of homes and what its managers have accomplished. Katja compares the “wild-and-free-life” to the life at the home (where there strict rules and regulations, no alcohol/drugs, no sleeping elsewhere etc.). As we listen to the comparison, we go back in time and are introduced to the boys in the group and dwell with them to see how the “family” organizes life and operates.
In the film we also learn of Katja’s (and her friends’) political thoughts and opinions. We observe her acquaintance with the Orange revolution (2004). We hear her describe (and see, because the footage exists) her special relationship with one of the boys in the group, the break up of the group, a failed pregnancy, traumatic visit to Odessa, a miserable visit to her alcoholic mother and abusive grandfather’s apartment and other glimpses from her life, in chronological order. She also tells us about her younger brother whom she abandoned at an orphanage where they both lived as young children. She was approximately 9 when she escaped but he was too young to come along. She hasn’t seen him since. One of her current goals is to seek her brother again.
As things have turned out, Katja is now living in the apartment her mother had (she passed away). The place has been owned by the family for a long time. Katja struggles to keep the place but is constantly harrased by the authorities and others trying to take it over. The director helped her redecorate it so that she could have a nice home with her little girl (born in late April 2009).
The prospects are so to speak quite good and even her younger brother Andrey who was adopted to Italy has been located – so there is really a chance they will contact each other which is where the filmmakers wish to conclude the film.
Director: Tjörvi Guðmundsson
Producers: Hlín Jóhannesdóttir, Grímar Jónsson
Co-producer: Sigur ros
Editor: Dmitriy Rozin
Supported by: Icelandic Film Centre, Nordic Film- & TV Fund, RUV
Distributors: Scanbox, Sena
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