Anna Ivannikova

The False Promise of Advancement

Origin sticks like shit to your shoe! That's what Marlen Hobrack says, who grew up as a working-class child in Bautzen. But the promise of the old Federal Republic was that you can become anything if you just try hard enough. But that no longer applies. So is class in Germany fixed from birth? Have we long been living in a country in which origin and family background are more important for future prospects than individual performance and commitment? In Germany, it takes six generations to rise from poverty to the middle class, in Denmark only two generations. Those affected reflect on their life stories, the burden of their social origins, the wrong and right turning points for social advancement, as classified by social researchers. They talk of pride and shame, of financial hardship and wealth, of origin and future, of growing up and moving up in this Germany with its entrenched selection mechanisms for social advancement.

How Nadya Went to Get Vodka

Nadya and Valya, young women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, without faith and hope for the best, sisters, of whom, ironically, there are only two left. Will they be able to break out of their "Chekhovian" stupor and again begin to feel, breathe, live and love?

Russian Death

Valya has always been dreaming about living in Venice. She sold her Moscow flat and left. The younger sister, Nadezhda, stayed alone in the country house. After a few years Valya became disenchanted with Venice and returned. Now, "in a Chekhovian way", both sisters live in a house with a mezzanine, this is what you call loneliness together. They became stuck between the past and the present. Behind the gates you find the frightening and incomprehensible everyday life, into which you "enter each time like into an Odyssey". One day Alexey appears, a mature man with an intelligent face. Nadia snatches him but Valya also likes him. A classic love triangle? No, our sisters have very different plans for Alexey…