Hivos Tiger Awards Competition screening - THE HOPE FACTORY (Kombinat Nadezhda) by Natalia Meschaninova

Teenage angst and frustration is a universal feeling. That is also the driving force of Meschaninova’s film The Hope Factory, which takes place in the grey and dull industrial Russian city of Norilsk. It is the story of a young girl who dreams of escaping the dullness that surrounds her and reaching her long distance boyfriend who, from his end, seems pretty half hearted about the relationship.

Filmmaker Natalia Meschaninova comes from a documentary background, hence her examination of the setting and its social culture is very precise and even authentic. When the film kicks off, we see a group of teens drinking and having a good time, as the hand held camera seems to be placed among them like another characters and moves frantically and sparsely as if inebriated. This cinematographic style is appropriately disoriented in a storyline where all the characters seem aimless and lost themselves.

The Hope Factory, is after all, a tragedy of everyday life told in striking and unembellished realism. There is no clear narrative and what we are told is simply the snippet of a life of a young girl who dreams about getting away. Nevertheless, her story is rather involving and we really get to understand her psychological frame of mind as well as her need to get away.

The message that The Hope Factory seems to carry is that there isn’t much that society has to offer to young people, except perhaps for a steady job in a factory and that in this particular example, imprisonment comes very close to a life in Norilsk.