LADY WITH THE WHITE HAT (Dame met bet Witte Hoedje)
A film by Aliona van der Horst
The Netherlands Film and Television Academy
47 min.
The Lady with the White Hat is a portrait of a Ukranian woman, in Odessa, whose political convictions confined her to a psychiatric ward for seven years under Brezhnev and Andropov. Physically damaged but mentally unscathed, her resolve remains intact. She is a symbol for the many victims of Soviet psychiatry for whom years of medication and psychic humiliation make re-entry to society exceedingly difficult. Psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman understands the abuse of his profession: his efforts add a personal comment to the film, "Now, what?"
ALIONA VAN DER HORST was born in 1970, in Moscow. She received the Ph.D. in Russian Literature in 1993, and four years later graduated from the Netherlands Fil m and Television Academy. Her film work has received the Tushinsky Award (1997) at the Netherlands Fil m Festival, Utrecht, and the Silver Spire Award at the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival. Her films include Memorabilia (1995, documentary), Nitsjevo (1996, documentary), Chained (1997, documentary about a young Ukrainian sailor), The Red Box (1998, children's documentary about two girls quarreling over a stolen box) and The Dissident and the KGB General, a documentary about former enemies.