The love story and drama All Russians Love Birch Trees had its world premiere at this year's Filmfest München. It will shortly (in mid-November) be released cinemas in Germany. The film is the second feature by German director Pola Beck. After a series of shorts, Beck presented her first feature-length work, Breaking Horizons [+leggi anche:
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For her new feature, she chose to adapt the best-selling novel by Olga Grjasnowa, which was published in 2012. In it, the German-Azerbaijani author tells the story of a young woman, Mascha, who in the 1990s emigrates from the Soviet Union, or present-day Azerbaijan, to Germany. Mascha is Jewish, and her family had the choice to escape the civil war by going to Israel or Germany. This decision will follow Mascha throughout her entire life and will play an important role in her self-definition. However, Germany won't be her final destination: she will travel the world and live in several countries, always learning something about herself by being continually confronted with other cultures. Beck adapted the story of this lively and multi-faceted female protagonist with the help of scriptwriter Burkhardt Wunderlich, with whom she previously worked for Breaking Horizons.

All Russians Love Birch Trees is a tragicomic road movie that focuses on the search for love and a place to call home. It raises questions about the compatibility of being Jewish and living in Germany, about racism in everyday life and about the burden of the past. In this context, it seems more than appropriate that the team has chosen an international cast to play the multicultural characters in the story. The main role is taken on by a German actress with Turkish roots, Aylin Tezel. She has already worked with the director on Breaking Horizons and won a prize (the Deutscher Schauspielpreis) for her performance in it. The rest of the cast includes Israeli actress Yuval Scharf (A Tramway in Jerusalem [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Amos Gitai
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The film is a production by augenschein Filmproduktion GmbH in collaboration with German TV channel ZDF. It is funded by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Creative Europe – MEDIA, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and Deutscher Filmförderfonds. Port-au-Prince Pictures GmbH is in charge of its distribution.

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