Lightdox Nabs Coming-of-Age Doc Set in Putin’s Russia ‘How to Save a Dead Friend’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Lise Pedersen Swiss-based sales and distribution agency Lightdox has acquired world rights for “How to Save a Dead Friend,” the debut doc by Russian filmmaker Marusya Syroechkovskaya.

Lightdox provided Variety exclusive access to the film’s trailer ahead of the film’s world premiere at Swiss doc film fest Visions du Réel next week.

Shot over more than a decade, the film chronicles the love story between millennials Marusya and Kimi, and his descent into drug addiction against the backdrop of Putin’s rising autocracy.The filmmaker was given her first video camera at the age of 10, and has never stopped filming the world around her since. “It was my tool to make sense of everything that was happening to me, to explore the world,” she tells Variety, speaking from Israel, where she and her partner have taken refuge since early March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I was protesting for many years: I went to anti-government rallies and, lately, to the anti-war demonstrations.

My brother was arrested, my boyfriend spent time in prison for protesting. The authorities knew where we were, so it was just a matter of time before we would get arrested,” she says.