"Giving Birth to Ourselves": Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists

Unclenching the Fists, the sophomore feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, is set in Mizur, a small mining town in North Ossetia, one of seven autonomous republics in the perpetually unsettled constellation that is the North Caucasus. The liminal setting--at once vertiginous and cramped, as though a town sprouted up from the bottom of an avalanche--is key to the film's moods, swinging from yearning to resignation and back. We root for the film's young central character, Ada, played by Mi...