Unclenching the Fists

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Unclenching the Fists

2021

1h 37m

Drama

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Watchlist

Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

88%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

67%

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Ada is stuck. Living in a dead-end industrial town in North Ossetia, she is caught in the tight grip of the men in her life. But when her older brother returns home and her domineering father suddenly falls ill, Ada finally sees a possible path to freedom.

Critics Consensus

A daring feature debut for director/co-writer Kira Kovalenko, Unclenching the Fists explores how family ties can stifle as much as they support.

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Noel Murray

Los Angeles Times

05/26/2023

This is a different kind of prison escape picture, focusing on the stifling confines of a life devoid of possibility.

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Beatrice Loayza

New York Times

05/25/2023

With its steely color palette and brooding, tight-lipped performances, the film often trades in art-house cinema clichés — and its relentless atmosphere of doom and gloom reduces the characters to mere victims of implacable forces.

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Phil Hoad

Guardian

05/22/2023

4/5

There’s an uncanny claustrophobic charge to Kira Kovalenko’s family drama, though it finally exhales an equally powerful sigh of self-redemption.

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Stephanie Bunbury

Deadline Hollywood Daily

09/16/2023

Kovalenko and her co-writer Anton Yarush weave this story’s warp and weft of contradictory truths with tremendous skill and intelligence. Nothing about this situation is as simple as we want it to be.

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Jim Ross

TAKE ONE Magazine

08/05/2023

Although their North Ossetian town is hardly painted as a warm place […], the character interactions are skilfully pitched to create an oppressive atmosphere derived from the people in Ada’s life rather than where she leads it.

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Todd Jorgenson

Cinemalogue

06/02/2023

This gritty and incisive portrait of systemic oppression and fractured family dynamics is rough around the edges yet quietly powerful without turning heavy-handed.

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Der I

@RT41356407 10/28/2024

A shocking film about the internal and external wounds caused by civil war-like conditions and rigid cultural forms. Watch it and keep your nerve.

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Kira Kovalenko

Director

Milana Aguzarova

Ada

Alik Karaev

Father

Soslan Khugaev

Akim

Khetag Bibilov

Dakko

Arsen Khetagurov

Tamik

Unclenching the Fists: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

Ada is stuck. Living in a dead-end industrial town in North Ossetia, she is caught in the tight grip of the men in her life. But when her older brother returns home and her domineering father suddenly falls ill, Ada finally sees a possible path to freedom.

Director: Kira Kovalenko
Producer: Alexander Rodnyansky, Sergey Melkumov
Screenwriter: Kira Kovalenko, Anton Yarush, Lyubov Mulmenko
Distributor: MUBI
Production Co: Non-Stop Productions
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Russian
Release Date (Streaming): May 26, 2023
Runtime: 1h 37m