In 2005, 16 year old Marusya meets her soulmate Kimi and for the next 12 years their lives are inseparable, through euphoria and depression, happiness and desperation.
And all the while she films. Everything.

She uses her camera to chronicle her life in a Russian society that becomes increasingly more autocratic and repressive. In doing so, she also films every moment of her life with Kimi and as they film each other, one sees their love of a lifetime growing. But Kimi’s way of dealing with the harshness of society is by using drugs and these will eventually lead to his death.
And all the while Marusya filmed. Everything.

Out of all this film material she now has edited a memorial for the love of her life. Raw and painful, a portrait of youth, life and love, full of music and drugs, How to Save a Dead Friend makes us part of Kimi and Marusya’s life as they try to cope with living in a repressive society.

A message from a silenced generation, as the movie’s subtitle states, shot through with archival footage for some necessary context and chock full of “Vera-music” by bands that played our club, like Joy Division or Hole and their Russian equivalents, artists that we never heard of over here. But more than that, the movie has become a beautiful but painful portrait of a kind, dreamy and funny young man. Someone who couldn’t cope, but was loved to the end.

Jos Z

In kind cooperation with Forum Groningen.

IMDb

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