This is posted to the UKRAINE, RUSSIA, and SCREEN-L lists. In May I had a chance to be in Paris for about a week (a _VERY_ cheap ticket got me there; similar priced hotels accomodated me). But that should be on the TRAVEL-L list. On my second to last day I came across a notice in Le Monde of a a French-Ukrainian production, film that is, opening at movie theatres throughout the city. The name of the movie is Le Milicien Amoureux, roughly (real rough) The Amorous or Romantic Policeman directed by Kira Mouratova. The movie was shot in Odessa in Russian with French sub-titles. I was impressed by the quality of the production: clever uses of camera positions as well as an interesting way of repeating spoken lines throughout the movie, almost in a caricature fashion. I was also taken with the story and its particular depiction of life in (to use Serhiy's [of RUSSIA & UKRAINE lists' word) "Sovok": the strange bungling of judicial proceedings, police affairs, admission to hospitals, in other words those things which would proceed much more simply in this country. Den (of the SCREEN-L list), there is use of old video in this movie; add one more to your collection. What follows is a spoiler. Roughly the synopsis of the movie is: One night in Odessa Kililiouk finds an orphan baby in a cabbage field. He wraps it in his shirt and takes it to the police office. Natasha, the abandoned baby is placed in an orphanage. Kililiouk and his wife, Klava, develop a singular obsession of adopting this child. The story develops in the town, then the police station, the orphanage, Kililiouk and Klava's apartment, and finally at the legal proceeding where they petition for adoption of the child (interestingly, through the window of the court you can see the activities of the port at Odessa). Has anyone else seen this film? Any thoughts? How about Kira Mouratova? Who is she? I understand she has made one other film Le Syndrome Asthenique, roughly Asthenic (of asthenia, meaning weak) Syndrome. Any thoughts? Max [log in to unmask]