Malika Musaeva Makes History at Berlin With Chechen Film ‘The Cage Is Looking for a Bird’
variety.comChristopher Vourlias First-time writer-director Malika Musaeva is set to make history at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, where her female-centered coming-of-age drama “The Cage Is Looking for a Bird” is the first Chechen-language film ever selected by the venerable German fest.
Musaeva’s debut, which world premieres Feb. 22 in the festival’s competitive Encounters section and is being repped internationally by Totem Films, focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village, where they must defend their freedom and the right to live their own lives.
At the film’s heart is a friendship between two teenage girls, played by first-time actors Khadizha Bataeva and Madina Akkieva.
On the precipice of adulthood, the duo seeks refuge in each other as they navigate difficult decisions about their futures. Born in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechen Republic, Musaeva says she conceived of the film as a “collection of different experiences, different facts, different destinies,” inspired by the personal histories of family members and friends and the many women who surrounded her throughout her life.
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