Civil Status

Russia, 2005, 30’

The Civil Registry office is the place where the most important moments of a person’s life are turned into bureaucratic procedure. New couples promising to love for life, grief-stricken widows, nervous pairs crushed after incorrectly filling-out a form, angry husbands asking for a divorce – all this is the daily experience of the office workers. Where weddings intermingle with divorces, and birth certificates with death certificates.

To work in this office, which, incidentally, is windowless, one has to be married…

Directed by Alina Rudnitskaya

Produced by St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studio