Intergirl is a 1989 Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

. Set in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

) in the time of perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

 during the 1980s, it was the first piece of the popular culture portraying prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 in the USSR. The film was the most popular Soviet film in 1989 (41.3 million viewers) and made a star of leading actress Elena Yakovleva

Elena Yakovleva

Elena Alexeevna Yakovleva is a Russian actress known for her roles in such films as Intergirl and Encore, Once More Encore! as well as for the main role in the popular TV-series Kamenskaya. She is a long-term actress in the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre...

.

It is the screen adaptation of the eponymous story by Vladimir Kunin (also author of Svolochi).

Plot summary

Tatyana is a beautiful Soviet nurse who is underpaid at her hospital job, so she turns a prostitute catering to international tourists under a "protection" from the militsiya

Militsiya

Militsiya or militia is used as an official name of the civilian police in several former communist states, despite its original military connotation...

 and the KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

. She becomes well paid in dollars, and helps her ailing mother to survive. Tatyana's international clients enlighten her about the life in other countries, so she accepts a marriage in order to escape from the grim Soviet reality. But even being married to a decent man abroad, she still suffers from being labeled as an ex-Soviet prostitute, and her new life is full of new troubles.

Awards

3 wins and 1 nomination. Elena Yakovleva has won the Best Actress award at Nika

Nika Award

The Nika Award is a prestigious annual ceremony held by the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences which was established in 1987 in Moscow, Russia by Yuli Gusman, and ostensibly modelled on the Academy Awards . Russian Academy Award takes its name from Nike, the goddess of victory...

, 1990, and Tokyo International Film Festival, 1989.

External links

• Screenshots
• Online version
• Online version at Movie.ru