Kira Kovalenko’s feature Unclenching the Fists was initially inspired by a line in William Faulkner’s novel Intruder in the Dust.
Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event, the Russian director said she thought a lot about Faulkner’s line, “While some people can endure slavery, nobody can stand freedom,” when she began co-writing her sophomore film, which is now Russia’s submission into this year’s International Feature Oscar race.“While I was thinking about this line, I realized that I needed to find the place that I could tell this story about, and this place was a small mining town close to the place I was living,” Kovalenko said via her producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who was interpreting for on the panel.
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