Toward Poetics of Authenticity. The Hope Factory and the New Wave of Russian Women Filmmakers. A Conversation with Natalia Meshchaninova

Abstract

Natalia Meshchaninova is a prominent representative of the new wave of women filmmakers emerging in Russia since 2010. Exploring the micropolitics of gender and location, this new generation of women directors reclaims authenticity as an essential quality of their representations. The conversation with Meshchaninova revolves around the director’s feature debut Kombinat “Nadezhda” / The Hope Factory (2014), cinematic authorship, her ongoing interest in forms that fall between documentary and fiction, the omitted time of documentary, the notion of authenticity, as well as the manifestation of authenticity in speech, camerawork, directing actors and the choice and cinematic treatment of location. This interview, taking place at Yale University in March 2016 during Meshchaninova and scriptwriter Lubov Mulmenko’s visit, was originally conducted in Russian.