Olga Olga Helena
18 minutes
2005
Color
Original text: Russian and French w/ Russian subtitles
Voices: Alexandra Pchenkov, Elena M., Larissa Eltchaninoff
Camera & editing: Eléonore de Montesquiou
Production: Espace Croisé, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Roubaix
Between experimental and documentary, Olga Olga Helena is built on layers of text, the film translating in images the temporal shift between the Russia of the beginning of the 20th century and the new country it is today.
The soundtrack starts with a poem by Alexander Blok read in Russian, and goes on with the story of an exile, which is read in French by three young Russian women.
The images of the film were shot in St Petersburg recently, thus accentuating the distance already created by the narrative structure and the formal shift of the text of this film compared to a precise historical documentary work.
My film tends to act more as a dream, about disappearance and loss, echoing Blok’s poem.