IN LOVE BY CHOICE (VLYUBLEN PO SOBSTVENNOMU ZHELANIYU)

WATCH NOW - click on the poster and then on ”Rent Film“ middle green button in the player window to stream using secure payment OR  DOWNLOAD to own ”BUY Film“ purple button on the right

1982, 89 min., color

Lyrical comedy

Synopsis

A handsome sportsman Igor Bragin and a plain but brainy librarian Vera Silkova make an unusual agreement: to fall in love with each other through will alone. The developments of the pact are, of course, comic, but the background is less so: late Soviet reality with a few of its unattractive features – the rate-race for social advancement and status based on material possessions, corporate politics that pushes the best out of the way, black market, drunkenness, growing skepticism and disillusionment with any ideals. Yet, like a lotus from the mud, something pure, innocent, and beautiful glimpses now and then in a child or an old person and also grows unexpectedly between these two, slightly lost, people. Made in the 80s, the film strikes some deep cords now, which could be also attributed to the film’s fabulous actors.

Director: Sergei Mikaelyan, screenplay: Sergei Mikaelyan, Alexander Vasinsky, camera: Sergei Astakhov, production designer: Alexei Rudyakov, misic: Igor Tsvetkov, sound: Natalya Levitina

Cast: Oleg Yankovsky, Yevgenya Glushenko, Vsevolod Shilovsky, Irina Reznikova, Yuri Dubrovin, Vladimir Belousov, Ivan Ufimtsev

Awards

Yevgenya Glushenko: Best Actress Silver Bear at 33rd Berlin IF Festival 

Oleg Yankovsky: 3 NIKA award, Golden Eagle, Best Actor at Valladolid, et al.

Film’s Other Awards

Best Actor VKF XVI, 1983

Best Actress  Varna Festival, Bulgaria, 1983

4 medals in Poland Koshal Screening, 1983