ABOUT LOVE

In “About Love” (“Pro ljubow”, 2015) by the Russian director Anna Melikyan, a lecturer at the Strelka Institute in Moscow gives a public talk on love in which she brings together biochemistry and poetry. From there the film branches into episodes: a young couple who can only find each other in the costumes of their anime heroes; an office manager whose boss makes her an indecent proposal in the middle of a wave of redundancies, while her unemployed boyfriend plans a marriage proposal; a Japanese woman seeking a Russian husband in Moscow; a graffiti artist who sprays portraits of strange women on walls until his wife finds out. And the lecturer herself runs into her former boyfriend.

Anna Melikyan tells this as a roundelay, comedic and with an eye on present-day Moscow; the cast includes Renata Litwinowa, Michail Jefremow, Julia Snigir and Wladimir Maschkow. At the Kinotavr festival in Sochi, the film won the main prize and the distributors’ jury prize in 2015, and later the Golden Eagle for best Russian feature film. “About Love” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2016 in the Closing Night section.

Shown at the 2016 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2016 · Film Archive