North American Premiere

A fashion show produced by female inmates in a Siberian Prison offers the unexpected backdrop to this peek into the lives of the first generation of women to come of age in Post-Soviet Russia. Yulia, Tatiana, and Natasha find their lives inexorably bound together when they meet at UF-91/9, and together they face long prison terms. They have found themselves there for different reasons, but behind the prison walls such distinctions scarcely seem to matter. The only thing linking them to the rare frivolity of their former lives is the fashion show they stage. Made-to-measure designs are flaunted by their fellow inmates on a makeshift catwalk.

When not relieved by the distraction the show provides, they dream of life outside the prison walls, and hope for better things to come upon release. Yet, even release from prison comes tinged with unexpected sorrow; it forces painful separations from the intense bonds that the women share.

A complex narrative weaves the stories of these women’s lives behind the walls with the lives and loves they’ve left behind, and reveals the hardship and struggle for survival on both sides of the prison bars.

-Sky Sitney