River Dreams

A “Heimatfilm” with a difference: Kristina Mikhailova asks women and girls to imagine themselves as a river. Village girls, young female city dwellers, LGBT and gender positivity activists, a headmistress singing the praises of gender-conformist education, women in prison, students with dreams of emigrating, as well as recurring conversations of toxic masculinity, sexual assault and, finally, the trial of a former economics minister widely reported on in Kazakhstan who brutally murdered his wife, Saltanat Nukenova. But on the banks of the unassuming river Aksay, the “river girls” also talk of their desires, dreams and utopias. A brave act, since the interviews take place against the backdrop of a gender-conservativism that is often hard to imagine. The thus emerging panorama of female life plans, including the opportunities to realise these in Kazakhstan, combines into poetry through the guiding metaphor of the river. With radical tenderness and almost sociological rigour, feminist demos and the art of active listening give rise to political scenes marked by sisterhood and solidarity. (Gaby Babić, Barbara Wurm - Berlinale 2026)