Rising Filmmaker Natalia Sinelnikova on Embracing Fear and Chaos in Her Berlinale, Tribeca Debut ‘We Might as Well Be Dead’

variety.com:

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentNatalia Sinelnikova, a rising writer-director who emigrated from St. Petersburg to Germany as a child, is exploring the disrupting force of fear through her critically acclaimed feature debut “We Might as Well Be Dead.”The film, which world premiered at the Berlinale and is having its North American premiere at Tribeca, is both a dystopian and tragicomic satire taking place in a high-rise, secluded building which harbors a carefully-curated community in a world that has fallen apart.

The movie follows Anna, who works as a security officer for the building and lives there with her daughter. When a dog disappears, the picture-perfect world of the community derails and turns into chaos, leading to irrational fears, mistrust and cruelty.

The movie is represented in international market by Fortissimo Films. Sinelnikova spoke to Variety about what drove her to write “We Might as Well Be Dead” and the underlying themes of this timely allegory.How did you come up with this concept of a closed-off, socially distanced community?

It seems so timely — did you write the script during the lockdown? I know! I actually wrote the script before the pandemic, and what’s mad is that I had written some scenes with people wearing masks and being afraid of contagions.