Content warning: The film in this review contains material that may be triggering. Viewer discretion advised.
For some, to seek fortune is to challenge miracles. Four queer migrants from Cuba have gambled with life in Moscow ever since the Ukraine-Russia crisis hit. There are not many that they can do. Living in a storm of uncertainty by celebrating love is their way to make through such an unsure life. On the stage of Calls from Moscow (Luis Alejandro Yero, 2023), and perhaps on the stage of our lives—as it clearly is not an ideal world—life is a dispute of sowing and reaping of a miracle.
The winter that covered Moscow made Daryl, Juan Carlos, Eldis, and Dariel unable to move much to make ends meet as a migrant. But what is the use of a human brain if not to guess which side of the coin will win in a coin toss? From there on, the stories of the four began to unfold to Yero, the director. Various ways to earn a living have been done, from working in a construction site to selling illegal drugs through the internet, at least to fill their stomach so they do not go hungry.
Yero brings the audience into the barely pulsating life of the four. The space in Calls from Moscow (2023) almost always shows the protagonists with phones in their hands. Showing their ways to comfort themselves with what they call home in small colored boxes. Spanish motivational videos, calls that often connect to the other line, to TikTok videos, became a distraction from their reality—lonely and far from laughter.
Calls from Moscow (2023) invite us to wait for pulses of life, visits from a miracle, and bubbles of change. For a moment, Yero made the audience forget the tired glints from the eyes in this film are real glints, which we may have encountered daily. On the back of those who have never “settled”, there is always vulnerability that turns into a stubborn ghost. The uncertainty of the four in their wait for a miracle can be sensed in Calls from Moscow (2023). Perhaps we are also a representation of hope that Daniel sang in the song Don’t Let Me Down, “Crashing. Hit a wall. Right now, I need a miracle. Hurry up, now, I need a miracle.”
Calls from Moscow (2023) is selected in International Feature-Length Competition Festival Film Dokumenter 2023. (Athallah, Tuffahati) (Vanis/Catharina Maida M)
Film Details
Calls from Moscow (Llamadas desde Moscú)
Luis Alejandro Yero | 65 Min | 2023 | Cuba, Germany, Norway | Color | 21+
Screening Schedule
12.04 | Auditorium IFI-LIP | 13.00 WIB
