Madeleine Somer

A poetic blend of fiction and found footage from the 1960s and 1970s. Two girls grow up along a European border. Slowly, they are driven apart and experience what it means to be separated by borders.

Bleak shots of Russian clinics set the tone. Then the telephone rings. On the other end of the line, Masha Osipova’s parents are asked to explain why they sent her to children’s sanatoria in her childhood. In these clinical government institutions, children were lodged free of charge in the Soviet era. Back then it was a privilege, but the deep impressions (drastic procedures, far from home) they left on Masha have had a negative impact on her life today.