PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Vladimir Bitokov, director of the film Mama, I’m Home.
Valdimir Bitokov with his film Mama I’m Home brings at the Venice festival a strong story of a woman who defies the power of the military to find te body of his son, presumably dead at war. This is based , as he tells us, on several real story e collected and then mix in this fictional character, splendidly played by Ksenia Rappaport.
Mama, I’m Home : Tonya is a bus-driver in a village on the outskirts of Nalchik, a modest city in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Together with her daughter, Tonya is eagerly awaiting the return of her only son, who is fighting for a Russian private military contractor in Syria. When Tonya is told that he has been killed in action, she refuses to believe it. She is sure that there was a mistake and her son is alive. She begins a grueling public battle with the contractor and the authorities, demanding the return of her son. When it becomes obvious that all efforts to silence Tonya are fruitless, a strange young man arrives on her doorstep…