About the Film

Winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Unclenching the Fists is the story of Ada, a young woman living in an old mining town in North Ossetia who tries to escape the stifling hold of her family. Ada is suffocating as she faces the walls put up by her father who doesn’t feel the difference between care and overprotection, her brother who has escaped from the family and her little brother Dakko. But the mountains surrounding the mining town and her family made up of men makes it harder for Ada to see the way out.
Kira Kovalenko successfully conveys to the audience Ada’s feeling of being trapped in a family she loves as much as she rejects. Powered by a special geography rarely seen in cinema, Unclenching the Fists tells a universal story of family dynamics.