Mwanamke Makueni

A Woman in Makueni | Eine Frau in Makueni

Berlinale Shorts 2023

She is in prison, waiting. But he has a long way to travel and arrives too late. He wanders through the strange city, lost, until he meets a woman who is willing to help him with some gentle magic.

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by Daria Belova, Valeri Aluskina
with Peter Oluoko, Mary Wanjuku Wambua, Beatrice Nafula, Nancy Syombuak, Daniel Kitonga Germany 2023 Swahili 14’ Colour

With

Peter Oluoko
Mary Wanjuku Wambua
Beatrice Nafula
Nancy Syombuak
Daniel Kitonga

Crew

Directors	Daria Belova, Valeri Aluskina
Screenplay	Daria Belova
Cinematography	Sasha Donkan
Editing	Valeri Aluskina, Daria Belova
Music	Hildur Guðnadóttir, Skuli Sverrisson, Guðni Franzson
Sound Design	Valeri Aluskina, Vitali Kavalenka, Zahar Semirkhanov
Sound	Valeri Aluskina, Alex Njuguna Mwangi, Tien Moses
Producer	Kirill Krasovski

Produced by

Faktura Film

Photos

Daria Belova

Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1982, she studied literature at the city’s university and then worked as an investigative journalist. In 2010, she moved to Germany and took up a film directing degree at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. Her short film Come and Play won the Discovery Award in the 2013 Semaine de la Critique at Cannes. Since March 2022, she has been working as a human rights defender of people suffering from political persecution.

Filmography

2011 Ballet Story; short film 2013 Komm und Spiel (Come and Play); short film · Ya psih? (Am I Crazy?) 2023 Mwanamke Makueni (A Woman in Makueni); short film, co-director: Valeri Aluskina

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023

Valeri Aluskina

Born in Khabarovsk, Russia in 1992. She embarked on a degree in design but broke off her studies at the age of 18 to move to Saint Petersburg and work on arthouse film productions. She studied directing at the Saint Petersburg School of New Cinema where she later also taught. In 2021, she began to study and practice as a gestalt therapist. Since March 2022, she has been living in Tbilisi in Georgia.

Filmography (short films)

2017 Ya tolko to, chto ya chuvstvuyu (Am I Just What I Feel) 2019 Snova snova snova Margaret (Again Again and Again Margaret) 2023 Mwanamke Makueni (A Woman in Makueni); short film, co-director: Daria Belova