Based on his short story ‘Natasha,’ David Bezmozgis’s second film encapsulates the Russian-Jewish experience in 1990s Canada.
For his second film, author David Bezmozgis has adapted the title story of his collection “Natasha and Other Stories.” Russian-Jewish audiences will applaud its accuracy, but whether all audiences will embrace it is a different matter.
More and more Jewish writers from the former Soviet Union are writing about their immigration experiences.
After the widely-acclaimed “Natasha” and “The Free World,” David Bezmozgis returns with “The Betrayers,” inspired in part by the tale of Natan Sharansky. Yevgeniya Traps weighs in.
David Bezmozgis portrays the Soviet Jewish experience with restraint and detailed focus. His new novel explores fresh ways to approach the topic he knows so well.
A decade after its publication, author David Bezmozgis is turning his debut short story collection, “Natasha and Other Stories,” into a film, which he will start filming in July.
Back in the early 1980s, the Russians were coming. Not the Cold Warriors, but the Jewish children, with names like Yana and Inna and Igor. Each child seemed impossibly pale — pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin, pale lips, pale hand clutching the hand of his or her mother, a woman, in contrast, impossibly bright — garish makeup, colorful clothing, aflame in gold and diamonds, awash in heady perfume. The Russian child (for we didn’t distinguish then between Russians and Ukrainians, Ukrainians and Latvians) arrived at our classroom door, silent, in clothes of Soviet gray: ill-fitting gray sweaters, and gray pants, pulled too high, cut too short. The mother stood in line for financial aid, chatting away with the Russian mother in front of her and the Russian mother behind her: a line of peacocks speaking in a foreign tongue, a sight and a sound not soon forgotten.