Unclenching the Fists, the sophomore feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, is set in Mizur, a small mining town in North Ossetia, one of seven autonomous republics in the perpetually unsettled constellation that is the North Caucasus. The liminal setting—at once vertiginous and cramped, as though a town sprouted up from the bottom of an avalanche—is key to the film’s moods, swinging from yearning to resignation and back. We root for the film’s young central character, Ada, played by Milana Aguzarova in a remarkable debut, to free herself from these shadows upon shadows—her brute father, her lapdog brother, a pile-up […]
The post “Giving Birth to Ourselves”: Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Giving Birth to Ourselves”: Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/26/2023
- by John Magary
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Unclenching the Fists, the sophomore feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, is set in Mizur, a small mining town in North Ossetia, one of seven autonomous republics in the perpetually unsettled constellation that is the North Caucasus. The liminal setting—at once vertiginous and cramped, as though a town sprouted up from the bottom of an avalanche—is key to the film’s moods, swinging from yearning to resignation and back. We root for the film’s young central character, Ada, played by Milana Aguzarova in a remarkable debut, to free herself from these shadows upon shadows—her brute father, her lapdog brother, a pile-up […]
The post “Giving Birth to Ourselves”: Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Giving Birth to Ourselves”: Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/26/2023
- by John Magary
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Kira Kovalenko's Unclenching the Fists is showing exclusively on Mubi starting May 23, 2023, in many countries in the series Viewfinder.Unclenching the Fists.Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has been almost impossible for members of the global film industry to ignore cinema’s soft power potential as a propagandistic tool of imperialism. Scrutiny over the ethics of supporting films funded by the Russian Ministry of Culture or tied in other ways to state oppression has ignited debate over what Russian culture constitutes—and exposed the fallacy of a monolithic identity within the lands the Kremlin claims as its own. Director Kira Kovalenko’s sophomore feature Unclenching the Fists (2021) counts Russia as its country of production (and was its official Oscar submission). But it was shot in the Ossetian language, in North Ossetia, an official...
- 5/26/2023
- MUBI
A quietly phenomenal performance by Milana Aguzarova as a young woman trying to break free from the unsettling relationships within her stifling family
Like her partner Kantemir Balagov’s 2019 film Beanpole, there’s an uncanny claustrophobic charge to Kira Kovalenko’s family drama, though it finally exhales an equally powerful sigh of self-redemption. Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a young woman in a North Ossetian mining town trapped by her ailing and possessive father Zaur (Alik Karaev). He guards the only front door key, letting her and her siblings out when he chooses, and refuses to let her have an operation to correct injuries sustained during a school hostage-taking that mean she has to wear an incontinence nappy.
Ada’s brother Akim (Soslan Khugaev) comes home from the city of Rostov and seems to have the self-possession and moral compass Zaur does not. He promises to get her the treatment...
Like her partner Kantemir Balagov’s 2019 film Beanpole, there’s an uncanny claustrophobic charge to Kira Kovalenko’s family drama, though it finally exhales an equally powerful sigh of self-redemption. Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a young woman in a North Ossetian mining town trapped by her ailing and possessive father Zaur (Alik Karaev). He guards the only front door key, letting her and her siblings out when he chooses, and refuses to let her have an operation to correct injuries sustained during a school hostage-taking that mean she has to wear an incontinence nappy.
Ada’s brother Akim (Soslan Khugaev) comes home from the city of Rostov and seems to have the self-possession and moral compass Zaur does not. He promises to get her the treatment...
- 5/22/2023
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
Kira Kovalenko’s feature Unclenching the Fists was initially inspired by a line in William Faulkner’s novel Intruder in the Dust. Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event, the Russian director said she thought a lot about Faulkner’s line, “While some people can endure slavery, nobody can stand freedom,” when she began co-writing her sophomore film, which is now Russia’s submission into this year’s International Feature Oscar race.
“While I was thinking about this line, I realized that I needed to find the place that I could tell this story about, and this place was a small mining town close to the place I was living,” Kovalenko said via her producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who was interpreting for on the panel.
Veteran producer Rodnyansky, who has long been a champion of unique and new voices hailing from Russia and the Ukraine, said he was compelled...
“While I was thinking about this line, I realized that I needed to find the place that I could tell this story about, and this place was a small mining town close to the place I was living,” Kovalenko said via her producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who was interpreting for on the panel.
Veteran producer Rodnyansky, who has long been a champion of unique and new voices hailing from Russia and the Ukraine, said he was compelled...
- 11/20/2021
- by Diana Lodderhose
- Deadline Film + TV
The old adage “write what you know” has rarely paid off with such bleak, persuasive power as it does in Unclenching The Fists, which won the Grand Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar this year, is Russia’s submission to the International Feature race at the Oscars and is screening at AFI Fest. Mubi has U.S. rights and is planning a theatrical release ahead of digital in 2022.
Kira Kovalenko’s confident debut feature is largely based on events of her own youth. Like her fictional heroine Ada (Milana Aguzarova), Kovalenko grew up in a dreary mining town in the Caucasus. She captures, with unsentimental precision, the way life spent with the same few people, year after year, can be both suffocating in its intensity and numbingly dull.
Ada’s home is in North Ossetia, a thinly populated but strategically important wedge of Russia on the border of Georgia and next to Chechnya.
Kira Kovalenko’s confident debut feature is largely based on events of her own youth. Like her fictional heroine Ada (Milana Aguzarova), Kovalenko grew up in a dreary mining town in the Caucasus. She captures, with unsentimental precision, the way life spent with the same few people, year after year, can be both suffocating in its intensity and numbingly dull.
Ada’s home is in North Ossetia, a thinly populated but strategically important wedge of Russia on the border of Georgia and next to Chechnya.
- 11/12/2021
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
Unclenching the Fists, the drama directed by Kira Kovalenko that won the grand prize this year in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, has been selected to represent Russia in the Best International Feature Film category at the 94th Oscars. The news was announced Monday by the Russian Oscar Committee.
Produced by Ukranian-Russian super-producer Alexander Rodnyansky with Sergey Melkumov, the pic (titled Razzhimaya Kulaki in Russian) is set in a former mining town in the industrial section of North Ossetia and follows a young woman named Ada (Milana Aguzarova) who struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she loves as much as she rejects.
Mubi has North American, UK and Ireland, Latin America and India rights to the the film, which will make its Los Angeles premiere next month at AFI Fest.
This year’s Un Certain Regard sidebar has spawned at least four submissions...
Produced by Ukranian-Russian super-producer Alexander Rodnyansky with Sergey Melkumov, the pic (titled Razzhimaya Kulaki in Russian) is set in a former mining town in the industrial section of North Ossetia and follows a young woman named Ada (Milana Aguzarova) who struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she loves as much as she rejects.
Mubi has North American, UK and Ireland, Latin America and India rights to the the film, which will make its Los Angeles premiere next month at AFI Fest.
This year’s Un Certain Regard sidebar has spawned at least four submissions...
- 10/25/2021
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Russia has picked Unclenching the Fists, a drama about a young woman trying to escape the stifling confines of her family, as its entry for the 2022 Oscars in the best international feature category.
Directed by Kira Kovalenko (Sofichka), Unclenching the Fists premiered in Cannes, where it won the top prize for best film in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar.
Newcomer Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a woman stuck in a dead-end industrial town in the North Ossetia section of Russia. Caught between the demands of her older brother and ailing but still domineering father, she struggles to break free. Unclenching the ...
Directed by Kira Kovalenko (Sofichka), Unclenching the Fists premiered in Cannes, where it won the top prize for best film in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar.
Newcomer Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a woman stuck in a dead-end industrial town in the North Ossetia section of Russia. Caught between the demands of her older brother and ailing but still domineering father, she struggles to break free. Unclenching the ...
- 10/25/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Russia has picked Unclenching the Fists, a drama about a young woman trying to escape the stifling confines of her family, as its entry for the 2022 Oscars in the best international feature category.
Directed by Kira Kovalenko (Sofichka), Unclenching the Fists premiered in Cannes, where it won the top prize for best film in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar.
Newcomer Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a woman stuck in a dead-end industrial town in the North Ossetia section of Russia. Caught between the demands of her older brother and ailing but still domineering father, she struggles to break free. Unclenching the ...
Directed by Kira Kovalenko (Sofichka), Unclenching the Fists premiered in Cannes, where it won the top prize for best film in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar.
Newcomer Milana Aguzarova stars as Ada, a woman stuck in a dead-end industrial town in the North Ossetia section of Russia. Caught between the demands of her older brother and ailing but still domineering father, she struggles to break free. Unclenching the ...
- 10/25/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
There are clenched fists aplenty in Unclenching the Fists. Stuck in a former mining town high in the mountains of North Ossetia, its characters are as weighed down with misfortune as they are with strained mitts. There are the protagonist Ada’s, racked with frustration; her brother Akim’s, all white-knuckled and ready for swinging; but most obviously there are their father Zaur’s, strict as iron and with a rigor-mortis grip. The film is the second feature from Kira Kovalenko, a filmmaker from Nalchik, in the foothills of the Caucuses—a locale just next Ada’s, and that sense of place is apparent. The film, a bleak and provocative work with few (if any) soft edges, premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regarde sidebar earlier this summer, where it was awarded the Grand Prix by a jury led by Andrea Arnold—another filmmaker synonymous with tales of young women and isolated places,...
- 9/29/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
To open: Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a young woman living in North Ossetia, is planted against the cement wall by the freeway. As the tumult of cars rushes by, a young man — the seemingly lovesick Tamik (Arsen Khetagurov) — calls for her. She covers her face with her zipped-up jacket, only exposing her vacillating eyes; they express so much it’s as though she’s created a never-before-seen emotion.
Continue reading ‘Unclenching the Fists:’ A Bleak, Unflinching Russian Coming-of-Age Tale [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Unclenching the Fists:’ A Bleak, Unflinching Russian Coming-of-Age Tale [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.
- 9/12/2021
- by Robert Daniels
- The Playlist
Claustrophobia suffocates the big screen in Kira Kovalenko’s latest feature, “Unclenching the Fists.” Kovalenko’ sophomore film won Un Certain Regard at Cannes and then made its North American premiere at Telluride. Here — in this ex-mining town — the contrast could not have felt more ironic. Compared to the verdant Rockies, Kovalenko’s film ruminates upon the ashy Caucasus. Rolling hills of dust restrain, rather than expand, the characters on-the-ground — leaving us chained to circumstance along with the rest of the cast. Compared to the glee and the glamor of the festival outdoors, “Unclenching the Fists” languishes in the hopelessness of the future.
After all, nothing much is going for Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a universally adored, single Ossetian woman. After a bombing incident in her childhood, the men in her life just can’t seem to let her go. Her father, Zaur (Alik Karaev), hides her passport to keep her in-town.
After all, nothing much is going for Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a universally adored, single Ossetian woman. After a bombing incident in her childhood, the men in her life just can’t seem to let her go. Her father, Zaur (Alik Karaev), hides her passport to keep her in-town.
- 9/12/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Savvy viewers of bleak Eastern European festival fare will get a sense early on in “Unclenching the Fists” why “Beanpole” director Kantemir Balagov championed this Russian slice of neorealism. Indeed, Kira Kovalenko’s Cannes Un Certain Regard-winning sophomore feature trades in that same kind of brutal austerity, as if the movie was conceived and shot from inside the bowels of a landfill. But at the same time, .
That young woman is Ada, living in a withering industrial town in the agriculturally anemic North Ossetia region of Russia with her father and two brothers. From the outset, her relationship with her father, Zaur (Alik Karaev), is established as one of parasitic codependence — he doesn’t like the perfume she’s wearing, or for her hair to be too long, or for her to be too far out of sight. She, meanwhile, abides his curfews and gets into a nervous state whenever...
That young woman is Ada, living in a withering industrial town in the agriculturally anemic North Ossetia region of Russia with her father and two brothers. From the outset, her relationship with her father, Zaur (Alik Karaev), is established as one of parasitic codependence — he doesn’t like the perfume she’s wearing, or for her hair to be too long, or for her to be too far out of sight. She, meanwhile, abides his curfews and gets into a nervous state whenever...
- 9/4/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Across cinema’s long lineage of stories about young women attempting to shake parental control and seize their own destinies, few protagonists have needed to escape quite as viscerally as Ada, the unbearably put-upon heroine of Russian director Kira Kovalenko’s imposing sophomore feature “Unclenching the Fists.” In poor health and kept under literal lock and key by her widowed, loveless father, she fears time is running out for her to make a run for it — though where on earth to go, in a desolate corner of the North Caucasus where the patriarchy threatens to ensnare her in other ways, is the question giving added urgency to this unusual, stonily moving coming-of-ager.
A tough commercial proposition any way you slice it, “Unclenching the Fists” nonetheless had a dream debut at July’s Cannes Film Festival, where it scored both a multi-territory distribution deal (including North America) with arthouse streamer Mubi...
A tough commercial proposition any way you slice it, “Unclenching the Fists” nonetheless had a dream debut at July’s Cannes Film Festival, where it scored both a multi-territory distribution deal (including North America) with arthouse streamer Mubi...
- 9/2/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Last year, the pandemic forced organizers to call off the full-fledged Cannes Film Festival. This year, the festival staged a comeback and welcomed industry players, including distributors looking for completed films at the buzzy festival, back to the Croisette July 6-17.
There was plenty of market activity from the start. Some of the buzzy titles that scored early distribution include Leos Carax’s English-language debut and festival opener “Annette.” Amazon scooped that up four years ago. Another Cannes favorite director, Paul Verhoeven, saw his latest effort, lesbian nun drama “Benedetta,” acquired by IFC Films.
IFC announced another acquisition, Mia Hansen-Løve’s”Bergman Island,” the day after the festival lineup was announced.
Last year’s Cannes included a list of official selections that allowed films to display the festival’s laurels, including Oscar winner “Another Round.” But actual activity was limited to a very abbreviated “special edition” staged in October, plus...
There was plenty of market activity from the start. Some of the buzzy titles that scored early distribution include Leos Carax’s English-language debut and festival opener “Annette.” Amazon scooped that up four years ago. Another Cannes favorite director, Paul Verhoeven, saw his latest effort, lesbian nun drama “Benedetta,” acquired by IFC Films.
IFC announced another acquisition, Mia Hansen-Løve’s”Bergman Island,” the day after the festival lineup was announced.
Last year’s Cannes included a list of official selections that allowed films to display the festival’s laurels, including Oscar winner “Another Round.” But actual activity was limited to a very abbreviated “special edition” staged in October, plus...
- 8/19/2021
- by Chris Lindahl and Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The streamer and distributor has also picked up Benedetta, Memoria, Cow and other titles.
Continuing its Cannes festival buying spree, London-based global streamer and distributor Mubi has picked up all rights for North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America and India to Un Certain Regard Grand Prize winner Unclenching The Fists.
The second feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, the film is set in a former Caucasus mining town, where a young woman struggles to escape the hold of her family. Milana Aguzarova, Alik Karaev, Soslan Khugaev and Khetag Bibilov star.
Wild Bunch is handling international sales on the film.
Continuing its Cannes festival buying spree, London-based global streamer and distributor Mubi has picked up all rights for North America, the UK, Ireland, Latin America and India to Un Certain Regard Grand Prize winner Unclenching The Fists.
The second feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, the film is set in a former Caucasus mining town, where a young woman struggles to escape the hold of her family. Milana Aguzarova, Alik Karaev, Soslan Khugaev and Khetag Bibilov star.
Wild Bunch is handling international sales on the film.
- 7/16/2021
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
“Unclenching The Fists,” a Russian drama directed by Kira Kovalenko, won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar competition at Cannes. And shortly after the awards were announced, the UK streamer and distributor Mubi acquired all North American rights to the film, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.
Mubi has been on a buying spree out of the festival — earlier in the week, the distributor acquired another Un Certain Regard prize winner, “Great Freedom,” as well as “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” from the main competition. Mubi also picked up the UK, Ireland, Latin America and India rights to “Unclenching the Fists.”
Awards for the Un Certain Regard were announced Friday in a ceremony at the Debussy Theatre at Cannes.
Andrea Arnold, who was also at the festival behind her documentary “Cow,” was president of the Un Certain Regard jury. She led a jury that included director Mounia Meddour,...
Mubi has been on a buying spree out of the festival — earlier in the week, the distributor acquired another Un Certain Regard prize winner, “Great Freedom,” as well as “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” from the main competition. Mubi also picked up the UK, Ireland, Latin America and India rights to “Unclenching the Fists.”
Awards for the Un Certain Regard were announced Friday in a ceremony at the Debussy Theatre at Cannes.
Andrea Arnold, who was also at the festival behind her documentary “Cow,” was president of the Un Certain Regard jury. She led a jury that included director Mounia Meddour,...
- 7/16/2021
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Mubi, the London-based streamer and theatrical distributor that’s been on a buying spree this week in Cannes, has acquired the rights for North America, U.K., and a host of other territories for Kira Kovalenko’s “Unclenching the Fists,” which took home the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, Variety can reveal.
Set in a former mining town in Russia’s North Ossetia region, “Unclenching the Fists” is the story of a young woman, played by Milana Aguzarova, who struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she both loves and rejects. The film is produced by two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky.
The deal includes all rights for North America, U.K., Ireland, Latin America and India. Wild Bunch International, which is handling the film’s world sales, has also closed deals for France (Arp), Benelux (September Film), Greece (Cinobo), Italy (Movies...
Set in a former mining town in Russia’s North Ossetia region, “Unclenching the Fists” is the story of a young woman, played by Milana Aguzarova, who struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she both loves and rejects. The film is produced by two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky.
The deal includes all rights for North America, U.K., Ireland, Latin America and India. Wild Bunch International, which is handling the film’s world sales, has also closed deals for France (Arp), Benelux (September Film), Greece (Cinobo), Italy (Movies...
- 7/16/2021
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
When she was growing up in Nalchik, the capital of Russia’s remote Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Kira Kovalenko wasn’t particularly interested in cinema. She can cite few films that inspired her as a girl. “In all honesty, I never wanted to be a director,” she tells Variety.
The 31-year-old filmmaker has traveled a long way since, as she prepares to bow her second feature, “Unclenching the Fists,” in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky, her sophomore effort marks her as a rising talent in a country with a venerable tradition of arthouse auteurs.
Sitting in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, Nalchik is far from Russia’s cultural lode stars in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s a city that likely would never have produced a single filmmaker to walk the red carpet in Cannes — let alone two — were it not for Alexander Sokurov,...
The 31-year-old filmmaker has traveled a long way since, as she prepares to bow her second feature, “Unclenching the Fists,” in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky, her sophomore effort marks her as a rising talent in a country with a venerable tradition of arthouse auteurs.
Sitting in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, Nalchik is far from Russia’s cultural lode stars in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s a city that likely would never have produced a single filmmaker to walk the red carpet in Cannes — let alone two — were it not for Alexander Sokurov,...
- 7/16/2021
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
One of the intriguing aspects of any film festival is the way conversations can develop between films that may have been made in completely different circumstances and countries — how themes can cut across regions and genres and a multifaceted dialogue can spring up even if none of the filmmakers knew they were getting into it.
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, one of the conversations that has developed is about young women trying to find a place for themselves in environments that afford them little or no agency in their own lives. We’ve seen that theme given a mystical spin in the Costa Rican drama “Clara Sola” and a naturalistic one in the African film “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds.” It’s even surfaced in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s documentary about her mother, Jane Birkin, “Jane by Charlotte,” in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part II” and in Joachim Trier...
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, one of the conversations that has developed is about young women trying to find a place for themselves in environments that afford them little or no agency in their own lives. We’ve seen that theme given a mystical spin in the Costa Rican drama “Clara Sola” and a naturalistic one in the African film “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds.” It’s even surfaced in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s documentary about her mother, Jane Birkin, “Jane by Charlotte,” in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part II” and in Joachim Trier...
- 7/10/2021
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
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