Avdotya Smirnova

Avdotya SMIRNOVA (1969, Moscow) graduated from the literature faculty of the Moscow State University after which she joined Sergei Soloviev as part of the Mosfilm ´Circle´ group, and starred in the Aleynikov brothers’ avant-garde films. In the early nineties she moved to St. Petersburg where she took up the head position at Kommersant, a daily newspaper. At the same time, she wrote for a variety of Moscow publications, such as Stolitsa, Afisha and The Moscow News. In St. Petersburg, she began to write screenplays, initially for documentaries, then for Aleksei Uchitel’s feature films. Smirnova is a co-author of the scandalous film 8 1/2 $, which caused a furor in its day. Relations is her directing debut.