Sisters From Siberia

Sisters from Siberia follows two Russian sisters adopted by Wellington City Councillor Stephanie Cook as they adapt to life in New Zealand.

Sisters From Siberia, New Zealand, 2009

Directed by: Russell Campbell
With: Stephanie Cook, Vladimir Zvegintsev, Tanie Dyett, Larissa Quinn, Yuri Ishanin, Inna Palmer, Aleksandra Roudova

DVCAM, Exempt, 115 minutes

Watch the trailer on YouTube 

Sisters from Siberia follows two Russian sisters adopted by Wellington City Councillor Stephanie Cook as they adapt to life in New Zealand.

In 2006, Wellington City Councillor Stephanie Cook succeeds, after some difficulty, in adopting two sisters from a children's home in Siberia. Katya is nine and Nadya four when they arrive to start a new life in the suburb of Aro Valley.

Over the next two and a half years we watch as the girls face the challenge of coping in a foreign environment, learning a new language and bonding in a family unit with their adoptive solo mum.

As they do so we encounter other members of Wellington's colourful Russian community, including a ship jumper who is now a social worker and versatile performer at the Russian Club, and an 84-year-old violin and yoga teacher whose parents were White Russian refugees.

Stephanie is committed to ensuring that her daughters grow up with a strong sense of their cultural heritage. But as they become Kiwi kids, are Katya and Nadya poised to leave their Russian identity behind?

"This would be an interesting story even if it only focused on their [Katya and Nadya's] lives in Wellington but Campbell cleverly takes the opportunity to get others in the Russian emigré community talking about their experience, opening it out into a fascinating discussion about how much original culture is it possible (or desirable) to keep in a new country.... The kids are gorgeous (and are already wonderful Wellingtonians) and Holloway Road seems like the best kind of old-fashioned community." – Dan Slevin, Capital Times

Sisters from Siberia was written, produced, directed, shot and edited by Dr Russell Campbell for Vanguard Films. Dr Campbell is Associate Professor of Film at Victoria University of Wellington and a partner in Vanguard Films. His last documentary Sedition: The Suppression of Dissent in World War II New Zealand (2005) played to sell-out houses at the NZ International Film Festivals and won the Media Peace Award.

Read Brannavan Gnanalingam's chat with Stephanie Cook, published on the Lumiere Reader.

Screening: Sisters From Siberia screened on 11 & 12 June 2010 to support The Blue Noses, an exhibiton by a Siberian art group on at the mediagallery.