LOVE LETTERS FROM A CHILDREN'S PRISON

US Premiere

The infamous gulag of the former Soviet Union still haunts the perception of Russia's present-day correctional institutions. And even though the labor camps no longer exist in their most brutal incarnation, Russia still operates a prison system that seems barbaric by contemporary standards.

Director David Kinsella has unique access to the Russian penal system and the grim reality faced by Russia's child inmates. The boys are reduced by poverty, alcoholism, and the weakness or absence of their families to a hopelessly dim future.

Kinsella's images are beautifully composed and provocative. The exceptional photography recalls the work of Bruce Weber or Herb Ritts. In spite of the monstrous acts these boys have committed, Kinsella manages to capture the innocence of their youth. In each of them lies a lonely child lost in a gray world that has no place for them.

Despite the bleak backdrop, love blooms. The film relates the story of a young girl who stands by her lover even after he is convicted for murder. They write love letters-his are a scratchy, freehand Cyrillic, hers a loopy, bubblegum script. She tries to make him a better person, to prepare him for a new life outside the prison walls. But his fellow prisoners are teenage thieves, murderers, and rapists, and their influence on him will prove devastating.

-Son Tran

Sponsored by
The Norwegian Embassy & The Norwegian Film Institute

DIRECTOR BIO
David Kinsella is originally a stills-photographer from Belfast, presently living in Norway. He has been named Documentary Press Photographer of the Year several times since his first win, at the age of sixteen in 1981, and has won both The Great Picture Contest in the USA and the Fuji Press Photographer prize.

Print Source:
Arna Maria Bersaas
Norwegian Film Institute
Dronningens Gate 16
P.O. Box 482 Sentrum
N-0105
Oslo, Norway
+47.22.47.45.73
arnab@nfi.no

6/14 at 11:00 AM
6/17 at 12:00 PM

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