Everybody Dies but Me

By the age of 24, Valeria Gaïa Germanica, a prodigy film maker, had already directed five documentaries and one feature film, and had been invited to Cannes twice - in 2006 she represented Russia with her documentary short Girls, and in 2008 she participated in the Critics’ Weeks with her début feature Everybody Dies but Me.
The film is a 'coming of age' story based on her earlier documentary work. Gaïa Germanica uses direct language and reportage imagery of cinema verité to tell the story of three teenage girls preparing for their first school disco. We observe the 15-year-olds as they go through all the necessary debutante's traumas: first kiss, first bottle of wine, first sexual encounter, first betrayal…. The director tells her story with such passion that we find ourselves drawn into the world of the three Muscovite beauties and experience their drama 'here and now'.
'I have very little imagination, so I film what I experience in real life,' says Valeria Gaïa Germanica. The script is autobiographical in part, and each of the three young actresses re-enacts episodes from their teenage past. This candid and direct strategy seems to do the trick. The voice of Gaïa Germanica is distinctly fresh and powerful, and her directorial future promises to be bright. (MB)