ULTIMATE DOCS COMPETITION

THREE COMRADES

(DRIE KAMERADEN)

The Netherlands, 2006, 99 min., Russian, Chechen

Director: Masha Novikova
Producer: Sasha Ourikh
Script: Masha Novikova
Cinematography: Vladas Naudzius, Ramzan Mezhidov
Editing: Srdjan Fink
Music: Jillis Molenaar
Sound: Tom Bijnen; Jillis Molenaar
Production company: NOVDOC / VPRO
Print Source:
Sasha Ourikh
Binankadijk 165
1018 ZE Amsterdam
The Nederlands
Tel.: + 31 20 776 6990
Fax: + 31 20 624 4472
e-mail: sasha@novdoc.nl
www.novdoc.nl



Three Comrades

Ruslan, Ramzan and Islam were typical college friends living in Grozny in the early 90's. Together they spent hours listening to music, cruising the streets of their hometown and hanging out. But the downfall of the Soviet Union and Chechnya’s subsequent struggle for independence changed all that. The three comrades went from having no worries to having the weight of the world on their shoulders as they faced having to protect their families and find their place in a war torn country. Initially the three of them stayed in the city together - Ruslan keeping Ramzan company as the aspiring cinematographer captured the bombings and gunfire on tape and Islam working a s a doctor in a nearby hospital where he too witnessed the atrocities of war on a first hand basis. Though they entered the war together, the fates that beheld these three lifelong friends were vastly different. Two of the young men never saw their 30th birthdays and the third was wrongfully convicted of terrorism and forced to flee his homeland. Comprised of Ramzan’s archive footage and interviews with surviving family members this delicately powerful film is a moving statement about the impact of war.

Masha Novikova was born in Moscow, Russia in 1956. She studied pedagogy at the University of Moscow. And later she worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature. Short before the fall of Berlin Wall, she came to the Netherlands. Since then she has lived and worked in Amsterdam, where she undertook her studies of camera, scriptwriting and film directing at the .”Kunstweb” with Stefan Majakowski. In 2000 she made some early work in Grozny for Train to Grozny by Leo de Boer, and in 2002 did some shooting there for Jos de Putter’s The Damned and the Sacred.

Filmography:

Between Heaven and Earth (2007), with Frank van den Engel;
In Memoriam Alexander Litvinenko (2007), with Jos de Putter;
Three Comrades (2006);
Fallen Engel (2005);
The Road to Kremlin (2004), with Jos de Putter;
Greca Crossed the River (2004), with Leonid Vlasov.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31 AT 9:00 PM./CHOPIN THEATRE

TUESDAY, APRIL 3 AT 4:00 PM./THE WILMETTE THEATRE