After these failures, Katya finds genuine tenderness with a colleague, a journalist named Tanya (played by Tatyana Polozhiy ).
In the vast and controversial multimedia project known as "DAU," one film stands out for its intimate focus on a forbidden romance set against the backdrop of a totalitarian regime. DAU. Katya Tanya (2020) is not an epic chronicle of political intrigue, but rather a deeply personal and haunting portrait of a woman's search for love and her ultimate destruction at the hands of the state.
Their relationship is deemed "unacceptable for a Soviet woman" and is eventually crushed by the interference of the (state security) and the Institute's First Department. Patriarchal Pressure:
is a provocative feature film from the sprawling, multi-platform cinematic experiment known as the DAU project . Directed by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel , the film serves as a character-driven entry into a series that blurs the lines between reality and historical simulation. DAU. Katya Tanya
There is no score. Only the sound of a ticking clock, a dripping faucet, and the slosh of liquid in a glass. The silence is a weapon.
The film stands as a testament to the power of independent art to challenge political and social norms. It remains a landmark entry in the ambitious, controversial, and unforgettable DAU project, an important work of Russian cinema that explores themes of love, loss, and the struggle for identity under state control, solidifying its place in the annals of queer cinema and offering a feminist perspective of Soviet life.
: Reviewers from Letterboxd note that this entry feels stylistically different—it uses non-diegetic music and faster editing, giving it a "half-baked melodrama" feel compared to the raw realism of other chapters. After these failures, Katya finds genuine tenderness with
To understand DAU. Katya Tanya , one must understand the unprecedented scale of the overall DAU project. Filmed primarily between 2008 and 2011 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, DAU began as a traditional biopic of the Nobel Prize-winning Soviet physicist Lev Landau (played in the films by conductor Teodor Currentzis). However, it quickly morphed into a massive sociological experiment. Forms of Female Subjectivity in “DAU. Katya Tanya”
This concept focuses on the characters Katya and Tanya as researchers or subjects within the Institute, blending the project's signature retro-futuristic science vibe with interpersonal drama.
First, context is crucial. The DAU project, inspired by the life of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Lev Landau (nicknamed "Dau"), rebuilt a 1:1 scale Soviet research institute and communal apartment in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Non-professional actors lived in character for months. Cameras were hidden everywhere. There was no script—only "situations." Katya Tanya (2020) is not an epic chronicle
: The film opens with Katya seeing off a young scientist, Sasha, to WWII. His idealistic belief that "love lasts forever" haunts her after he never returns.
According to Ilya Prudikhin, DAU is an attempt to create a new kind of art form that captures the essence of modern life. The project is inspired by the idea of a continuous, unedited flow of life, where the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred. Through DAU, Prudikhin aims to create a sense of immersion, drawing viewers into a world that is both familiar and strange.
