IDFA 2006
Tender's Heat. Wild Wild Beach
Zar nezhnykh. Dikyi, dikyi plyazh
Alexander Rastorguev, Susanna Baranzhieva, Vitaly Mansky
Russia
2006
125 min
World Premiere
IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary
According to a drunk, middle-aged woman who always wanted to be an actress, "Happiness is when someone understands you, when someone loves you." Her equally inebriated boyfriend is so jealous that he smacks her time and again. Director Alexander Rastorguev follows the tragicomic couple during their summer holiday by the sea. But he also directs his camera at other seaside visitors, like the man earning a living on the beach with a camel, a young womaniser, and a dwarf getting married to a young woman. They are all spending the summer on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Rastorguev observes man in all of his manifestations: fat, thin, young, old, drunk, dancing, singing, having sex and bathing in mud or in the sea. Even President Putin makes an appearance, clad in casual clothes. Quite a few fortune-seekers at the resort get caught up in a daily carrousel of sex, booze and aggression. When a corpse washes ashore, several people say they would also like to drown in the sea. It is no surprise that the soundtrack repeatedly plays a song of longing, about a small boat all alone at sea: "What is it looking for so far from home? Not happiness, but a typhoon."
Credits
Screening copy
Vertov & Co
Vertov & Co
World Sales
Deckert Distribution GmbH
Deckert Distribution GmbH
Director
Sound
Editing
Co-production
Ma.ja.de Filmproduktions GmbH
Ma.ja.de Filmproduktions GmbH
Involved TV Channel
ARD/WDR
ARD/WDR