Directed by Angelina Nikonova • 2011 • Russia

Marina (co-writer Olga Dykhovichnaya) lives a stable, prosperous, and somewhat boring life with a husband and a job as a social worker. Everything changes, however, when a violent sexual assault turns her life on its head, transforming her into a “twilight” version of her former self. As she begins to question the gendered violence that structures the society around her, Marina goes on a series of self-destructive adventures in search of meaning and justice. As Russian society continues to fail to address its relationship to gendered aggression – and in light of laws passed since the film’s release decriminalising domestic violence – Angelina Nikonova’s shockingly honest account of rape culture and the psychology of victimhood is one of the nation’s most important recent films.

TWILIGHT PORTRAIT • ПОРТРЕТ В СУМЕРКАХ
Directed by Angelina Nikonova
Written by Olga Dykhovichnaya and Angelina Nikonova
Cinematography by Eben Bull
Starring: Olga Dykhovichnaya, Roman Merinov, Sergey Golyudov

In Russian with English subtitles