CELESTIAL WIVES OF THE MEADOW MARI

CELESTIAL WIVES OF THE MEADOW MARI (NEBESNYE ZHENY LUGOVYKH MARI), 2012
Russia | DCP, Color, 106’ | Russian, Mari
Director: Aleksey Fedorchenko
Cast: Yuliya Aug, Yana Esipovich, Vasiliy Domrachyov

Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari presents 23 short stories about the Mari women, living on the west of the river Volga, and offers a snippet into the ethnic group’s character using a poetic narrative. Living somewhere between their own magical world and the realities of rural Russia, the place allocated to sexuality and death by the Mari people is depicted via the different characters throughout the film. Portraying the pagan tribe still surviving in Western Russia using a documentary-like structure, the film also includes highly intriguing folkloric details.