PHOENIX KATJA

PHOENIX KATJA the film

12 min. 2024 color and b&w language: Russian, w/English st format: 16:9, HD location: Narva, Estonia music: Lucy Railton camera and montage: Eléonore de Montesquiou “I am a phoenix bird. It's hard for me take off and fall.” writes Katja. She is a kindergarten teacher in Narva, a border town between Estonia and Russia. She was born in 1992, with the new Estonian Republic, in a Russian speaking family and environment. Katja considers that her generation was an experiment for the new republic. Today she is trapped between languages that reflect opposite positions about war and peace and freedom. I have been filming Katja since 2016. We made a first film together “Eksperiment Katja”. Today we wanted to continue and focus on languages. When I was in Tallinn and Narva at the end of March 2022, shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, I could see that Katja did not want to express her opinion. Katja lives in Narva, Russian speaking town in Estonia. In Narva people are split today, divided between those listening to voices of Russia or voices of Europe. Katja identifies with a phoenix, a phoenix that is coming back to life like the coexistence of Russian and Estonian speakers in her country.