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Short film
Poster for Civil Status

Civil Status

2005 · 29 min

A quiet, humane observation of everyday bureaucracy that reveals the full range of life's emotions in a single office.

Directed by
Alina Rudnitskaya
Genres
Documentary
Overview
A brilliant observational documentary filmed at the Civil Registry office in St. Petersburg, where people come to have births, marriages, divorces and deaths registered. 'It’s like a theatre here', one says in the beginning of the film, and it indeed is, the Theater of Life. The young women working in the office have a job that shifts from being verbally attacked and called idiots, to situations where they are subject to flirt, or where they master the happy ceremony of marriage. Faces, joy, sorrow, fun, despair... It’s all very well composed, rhythmical, with atmosphere conveyed, and lives up to what a documentary should be: multilayered and universal. And about Life.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
Directed by
Alina Rudnitskaya
Genres
Documentary
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • warmstrength 2 of 3
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
  • satiricalstrength 1 of 3
  • earneststrength 1 of 3
Pacing
measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • work
  • family
  • love
  • grief
  • identity
Places
  • workplace
  • big city
Era
contemporary
Audience
adult
Form
  • documentary
Content intensity
  • Gore none
  • Language mild
  • Violence none
  • Sex none
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action1
Horror0
Humour3
Realism10
Romance2
Tension3
Darkness4
Complexity5
Emotional weight7

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
documentary
Directed by
Alina Rudnitskaya
Written by
Alina Rudnitskaya
Cinematography
Alexander Filippov
Runtime
29 min
Country
Russia
Languages
Russian

TMDB