TURNING BACK THE WAVESGregory Gan

96 minutes/2009/color/Russian with English subtitles/Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Susanna Solomonovna Pechuro …as Herself

Malva Noevna Landa …as Herself

Irina Pavlovna Gavrilova …as Herself

Svetlana Pavlovna Gavrilova …as Herself

Tatiana Pavlovna Gavrilova …as Herself

Elena Vasilievna Yecheistova …as Herself

Anna Mihaylovna Lavrova …as Herself

Vladimir Alier …as Himself - bard singer

Tatiana Mihaylovna Bahmina …as Herself - dissident archivist

Gregory Gan Director, Writer, Producer

Cinematographer

Editor

Translation and subtitles from Russian

Rouzbeh Heydari Editor

Dr. Sharon Roseman Academic Supervision

Running time: 96 minutes

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

In Russian with English subtitles

Foreign Title: Повернуть Волны в Спядь

Date of completion (production): August 2008

Date of expected completion (post-production): December 2009

Shooting Format: Digital Video

Preview Format: DVD (All Regions)

Exhibition Format: DigiBeta, DVD (All Regions)

FILMMAKERS

CAST

Department of AnthropologyMemorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John's, NL, Canada, A1C 5S7T: (709) 737-8870e-mail: gregory.gan@mun.ca

Designed by Vanessa Stockley, granitestudios.ca

Susanna Solomonovna Pechuro was born to Jewish parents in

Moscow in 1933. When Susanna was nine years old, the Great

Patriotic War began. She was evacuated to the Ural region,

and worked as a nurse for wounded Red Army soldiers. While

in school, she formed an underground political organization to

uphold the ideals of the Russian Revolution. Her involvement in

this organization was a pivotal moment that sharply redefined the

contours of her life.

Malva Noevna Landa was born in Odessa in 1918. When she was

seven years old, the family moved to Saratov. Malva Noevna asserts

she started hating the Soviet regime when she saw the consequences

of collectivization in 1930. Her father was arrested in 1932,

released a year later, and arrested and executed in 1937, during

the time of Stalin’s “Great Purges.” Malva Noevna became

a geologist for “the romance of it all,” and after a long career,

joined the ranks of dissident intellectuals in the mid 1960s. In her

early nineties, she retains her strong political position, remaining

politically active.

PRINCIPAL CAST BIOGRAPHIES

Irina Pavlovna Gavrilova was born in Moscow in 1928. During the

Second World War, she was evacuated with her sister Svetlana to

the Gorki region. Her father passed away during the war. After

she returned from evacuation, she enrolled in the Moscow State

University, in the faculty of geography. She began teaching at the

university in 1949 and continued teaching until May 2008.

Svetlana Pavlovna Gavrilova was born in Chernigov, Ukraine in

1933. During the War, she was evacuated with her older sister,

Irina. Finishing school, Svetlana enrolled in university as a geology

student. Her yearly field expeditions took her to the Ural region,

Western Siberia, Armenia and Mongolia. She has fond memories

of riding horses, climbing mountains, and interacting with locals in

Asia and the former Soviet Union. Today, she continues teaching

geology.

Tatiana Pavlovna Gavrilova was born in 1939 in Moscow. She

considers herself a child of the “Thaw” generation—those who

came to maturity during Nikita Khrushchev’s liberal era in the

late 1950s and early 1960s. She became a psychology professor

specializing in child and family psychology.

Elena Vasilievna Yecheistova was born in 1926 in Moscow. She

survived the Second World War with her mother in Moscow, after

her dad passed away in 1943. She enrolled to study architecture,

and dedicated much of her life to building an architectural

complex in the first-ever downhill ski resort in the Soviet Union.

She is now retired, tending after 5 great-grandchildren.

Anna Mihaylovna Lavrova was born in Irkutsk, Western Siberia

in 1936. She can trace her family history to the 16th century

Polish ancestry. Her grandfather was a Moscow intellectual

who began to publish writers such as Dostoevsky and Chekhov.

After a career as a lake biologist on Lake Baikal in Siberia, Anna

moved to Moscow in 1953, and pursued writing. Her Moscow

acquaintances included Lord Valkonsky and the leader of the

Russian cubofuturist movement, Aleksei Kruchenih. She continues

working, writing about her Siberian past.

Through filmed interviews, seven Moscow women belonging to the creative,

professional or dissident intelligentsia remember certain periods of their lives in

correlation with major events in the history of the Soviet Union and the Russian

Federation. The participants retrace their history prior to the Russian Revolution of

1917, and detail their childhoods in the Bolshevik state. They evoke images of their

youth during collectivization, industrialization and the Second World War; remember

their emerging professional lives during ‘The Thaw,’ and their family lives during Leonid

Brezhnev’s era of stagnation. The film’s narrative culminates during the period of the

Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union as a conflictual moment in the lives of

many members of the intelligentsia. As an exploration of the boundaries of ethnographic

filmmaking, this film uses visual metaphors as a method to instigate interpretations of

the narrative material and create a dialogue among the filmmaker, the participants and

a wider audience. The visual thesis highlights oftentimes conflictual narratives in order

to reinforce the relevance of the critical participation of the women of the intelligentsia

in present-day Russia.

SYNOPSIS

“Responsible filmmaking”

The director returned to Russia in the summer of 2009 with an edited version of the

film “Turning Back the Waves.” He gathered all the participants, and screened the film

while recording their responses. The result, known as “elicitation,” a research method

in visual anthropology, was a vigorous dialogue about the position of the intelligentsia

in present-day Russia, as well as a chance for participants to view how the filmmaker/

anthropologist chose to represent them. This elicitation material will be included in a

DVD bonus section, when the film receives distribution.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Gregory Gan is an ethnographic filmmaker and a

graduate student in Social Cultural Anthropology

at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

He is currently finishing a Master’s Thesis on the

topic of “Women of the Russian Intelligentsia.”

He has a Hon. B.A. in anthropology from the

University of Toronto, and took film courses at

Ryerson University. His previous work includes

three short films, “Negative Space,” “Longpoint,”

and “Session Talks;” a mid-length ethnographic

film “Make a Wise Wish Now,” and a feature-

length documentary “In Search of Rumi,” in

post-production. He has traveled extensively

to pursue his interest in anthropology and

ethnographic film.

This feature-length ethnographic film was based on vigorous anthropological

research aimed at the completion of a Master’s Thesis at the Memorial University of

Newfoundland. My research interests in anthropology include identity politics, modern

state ideology and gender in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.

This research project focused on the position of the women of the Russian intelligentsia

in present-day Russia in light of the transition to post-Soviet society. The film is not

void of autobiographical interest, since I was born and raised in Russia, but have lived

in Canada for the last 15 years. Thus, my ethnographic filmmaking is characterized by

a personal and reflexive approach, which allows me to aim to make ethnographically

sensitive films.

DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT