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Siberia

Competition 2020
© 2020 Vivo film, maze pictures, Piano
A man flees from one world to another that is strange and cold. Furs and fires keep him warm; a cave serves as his shelter. He is a broken man who wants to be alone. But even isolation does not bring him inner peace. Once again, he goes on a journey, this time into the self. He explores his dreams, confronts memories and seeks out visions. The rare encounters with other people are in languages he does not speak, determined by bodies that fascinate him, and by types of love he explores and then loses. His journey becomes a dance with demons, but time and again it flares up: light. In cinema history there have been many attempts to portray the mythical as something intimate, and the radical as a personal journey. But there is only one artist who is as wildly anarchistic, metaphysically mysterious, and at the same time god-obsessed and fanatical about the truth: Abel Ferrara, joining forces here once again with his acting alter ego, Willem Dafoe. While his previous film Tommaso explored the way desire plays out in families, in Siberia the (male) ego abandons all semblance of everyday life in a tumultuous montage. To expose and discover himself.
by Abel Ferrara
with Willem Dafoe, Dounia Sichov, Simon McBurney, Cristina Chiriac, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Phil Neilson, Fabio Pagano, Anna Ferrara, Laurentio Arnatsiaq Italy / Germany / Mexico 2020 English 92’ Colour World premiere

With

  • Willem Dafoe (Clint)
  • Dounia Sichov (Ex-Wife)
  • Simon McBurney (Magician)
  • Cristina Chiriac (Russian Woman)
  • Daniel Giménez Cacho (Teacher)
  • Phil Neilson (Woodsman)
  • Fabio Pagano (Monk)
  • Anna Ferrara (Clint’s Son)
  • Laurentio Arnatsiaq (Inuit)

Crew

Director Abel Ferrara
Written by Abel Ferrara, Christ Zois
Cinematography Stefano Falivene
Editing Fabio Nunziata, Leonardo D. Bianchi
Music Joe Delia
Sound Design Neil Benezra
Sound Lavinia Burcheri
Production Design Renate Schmaderer
Costumes Brenda Gómez
Make-Up Marco Pompei
Assistant Director Jacopo Bonvicini
Casting Giulio Donato
Production Manager Daniele Esposito
Producers Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Philipp Kreuzer, Jörg Schulze, Julio Chavezmontes, Diana Phillips

World Sales

The Match Factory

http://www.the-match-factory.com http://www.the-match-factory.com

Produced by

Vivo film

Rai Cinema

http://www.raicinema.it http://www.raicinema.it

maze pictures

http://www.maze-pictures.com http://www.maze-pictures.com

Piano

http://somospiano.com/ http://somospiano.com/

Photos

Press Conference

Red Carpet

Abel Ferrara

© Aude Guerrucci

Born in the Bronx, New York City in 1951, he directed his first Super 8 films as a teenager and entered into early collaborations with screenwriters Nicholas St. John and John McIntyre. In the late 1970s, he made his first feature films, Driller Killer and Ms. 45. In the 1980s and 1990s, his international successes included King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral and The Addiction, which was selected for the Berlinale Competition. He won the Honorary Leopard at Locarno in 2011. His work most recently screened in the Berlinale Competition in 2020 with Siberia.

Filmography

1979 Driller Killer 1981 Ms. 45 1984 Fear City 1987 China Girl 1990 King of New York 1992 Bad Lieutenant 1993 Body Snatchers · Dangerous Game 1995 The Addiction 1996 The Funeral 1997 The Blackout 1998 New Rose Hotel 2001 R XMas 2005 Mary 2007 Go Go Tales 2008 Chelsea on the Rocks; documentary 2009 Napoli, Napoli, Napoli 2011 4:44 – Last Day on Earth 2014 Welcome to New York · Pasolini 2017 Alive in France; documentary · Piazza Vittorio; documentary 2019 The Projectionist; documentary · Tommaso 2020 Siberia 2022 Padre Pio 2024 Turn in the Wound

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2024