Chicks (Chiki)

Origin and Year: Russia, 2020	Director: Eduard Oganesyan
Runnning time: 2 x 50 min

Q&A after the screening.

It’s a hot summer, Zhenya has just returned from Moscow to her hometown in the middle of nowhere and the first thing she has to do is to go to the police station to pick up her friends. Marina, Svetla and co. were victims of an incident when they ended up in a truck with pork quarters in the middle of a cornfield. Four young prostitutes from a remote, religious town in southern Russia are fed up after this mess. They, too, want a normal life and the reassurance that they won’t be harassed in a region of truckers, tractor drivers, priests and other dubious male authorities. And so Zhenya comes up with a business plan. A visually lush depiction of the Russian countryside, where everyone prays and one doesn’t have to go far for a fist punch, this cheeky comedy has drawn millions of viewers to screens in Russia thanks to its extraordinarily natural actresses, the language actually spoken in Russia, its love for all the underprivileged, and its realistic look at one heat-slowed Russian town with all its oddities.