Mother and Son 1996, 67 min., colour, Dolby stereo Roskomkino North Foundation zero film (Germany) Lenfilm Screenplay: Yury Arabov Camera: Aleksey Fedorov Sound: Vladimir Persov Production Design: Vera Zelinskaya Editor: Leda Semyonova Starring: Gudrun Geier Aleksey Ananishnov The soundtrack includes music by M. Glinka, O. Nussio, D. Verdi, folk music. “The story is about an ideal human relationship — about love and deep affection between a mother and her son. Neither she nor he loves anybody in this world as much as they love each other. Their love is almost physically palpable, it is the edge, the limit of love, but only beyond it something true lies. It seems that those two are the only people on the entire Earth — no routine, no bustle, no unnecessary things, just a wooden house in the country where the seriously ill mother and her loving son lead a quiet life… To a certain extent the mother and the son are one single creature plunged into the strange and beautiful world of eternal Nature, the world which either has never been visited by Man (and thus nothing has been spoilt) or was forever abandoned by Man long–long ago…” Alexander Sokurov (from the author's annotation) Summary In the film Mother and Son the director presents the theme of meeting and parting of the two dearest to each other people as initially tragic. Death — the moment when a man breaks off his relations with Mother–Nature — is interpreted not as a natural stage of life cycle but as a hand of Fate that eventually gets hold of a man. The stage where the tragedy takes place is the Earth, the characters — the mother and the son, always and everywhere lonely and bound to each other by the fear of losing each other. Their faces are marked by different genetic codes. The son is Alexei Ananishnov, the principle character of Days of Eclipse, his mother — Gudrun Geyer, an emancipated European woman. But they both belong to the same Home. Sokurov who is inclined to shoot set models of a reduced size and thus to create a whimsical 'play on scales', in this film shoots a model of Home, a real size building in Russian fields. At the same time a huge open pit through which the hero's way to the depths of the Earth lied was shot in Germany. The road from Home is also the road to Home where Mother and Son lie in the same deathbed–cradle. The film has been bought for showing in 26 countries. Alexandra Tuchinskaya English translation by Anna Shoulgat, © 2002. Prizes and awards: 1997. 47th International Film Festival in Berlin: Special Award of the Ecumenical Jury Award of the program Forum (Berlin) Award of the International Confederation of Cinema Art Prize of the Guild of Film Researchers and Critics of Russia (twice) FIPRESSI award Andrey Tarkovsky Award Big Special Award Silver St. George for the Intention to Widen the Borders of Cinema Art Awards of the program Young Cinema to the director of photography Alexey Fedorov and actor Alexey Ananishnov KODAK award for Best Debut to the director of photography Alexei Fedorov (twice) 1998. Bronze Horseman Award (Lenfilm Studio): Best Directing Best Photography - A. Fedorov Best Design - V. Zelinskaya Best Sound Design - V. Persov 1998. First Prize of the II Bodrum International Environmental Film Festival.