Zmiivka

The fog lifts and the sun rises over yet another day in Gammalsvenskby, a village somewhere in Ukraine, out in the middle of nowhere, where old babushkas hang around in beet fields and collect the day's harvest. One of them is called Lida, and she lives in a nursing home, where every day presents a new chapter of a long and laborious, but also cheerful and lively existence. And now she has a new boyfriend! A Russian man, who she spends her days together with -much to the jealous displeasure of one of the other inhabitants- when she isn't helping out in the kitchen or serving soup and baked apples to the other residents. Lida belongs to the Swedish-speaking historic minority of the area. Both the landscapes and faces in Anna Eborn's evocative, beautiful and moving film are reminiscent of Béla Tarr and Tarkovsky, but the film's lively humour and humanity is entirely Eborn's own. The film is the second part of a trilogy about Lida, whom Eborn has been working on for several years, and which also includes 'Baba' (2010).