The Hope Factory

In the northern industrial city of Norilsk there are factories, freezing cold and air that smells of chemicals. The one thing the young people here want is to leave, and there is neither the money nor a way to do it. The film follows a young woman doing everything she can to escape; how the way out would work is unclear, and the relationship she holds on to is unsafe. The story is built like a documentary, handheld and without ornament; the hardness of the language spoken there is as much a part of the film as the city. It looks as though nobody has managed to get out, and yet nobody gives up trying. Polina Shanina appears in Natalya Meshchaninova’s hundred and four minute Russian film, completed in 2014.