Dau

Inspired by the physicists who built the Soviet atomic bomb, the film DAU follows a brilliant Greek-born physicist from 1928 through four tumultuous decades in the USSR. Driven to uncover the laws of the universe, the idealistic Dau is drawn into state service to help create one of history’s deadliest weapons. Inside a secret research institute, life is governed by scientific ambition, power, surveillance and privilege. As his autonomy erodes, Dau seeks freedom beyond his marriage through a succession of affairs, gradually losing both himself and his capacity to love. At once an intimate portrait of a man in pursuit of happiness and freedom and a vast fresco of a society founded on violence and ideology, DAU traces the small compromises that shape a life and alter the course of history.

The film DAU is the culmination of more than twenty years of work, uniting material shot fifteen years ago with recent scenes into one work: a cinematic experience possible only today. The starting point was my interest in the human being: our capacity to love, create, be free, make moral choices and find happiness in a world where a totalitarian system reshapes human nature itself. I chose a Greek as protagonist: as a pre-Christian civilisation, the Greeks held a morality different from ours, and Greek tragedy unites fate and freedom – destiny fulfilled through countless small human acts. Contemporary physics was the project’s conceptual core, from which the film’s language emerged. Split into parts, three cinematographers, production and costume designers built three independent visual worlds, each with its own light, colour, sound and rhythm. Documentary, dream, vision and memory become equal states of one reality, no longer linear or fixed, echoing quantum physics. Casting followed the same principle: shot over four years with thousands of extras whose physicality, speech and silence shaped the dramaturgy as much as the script. The film DAU builds its world with archaeological precision while obeying the free laws of art, meant to live in the viewer’s mind after the film ends.

PRODUCTION 1:
Phenomen Berlin - Ilya Khrzhanovsky, Svetlana Dragayeva
Großbeerenstr. 174 - 184
12277 Berlin, Germany
Tel: +44 7429338416
E-mail: info@phenomenfilms.com
Social Media: @ilyakhrzhanovskiy - Instagram, @svetlanadragayeva - Instagram

PRODUCTION 2:
Essential Films / Parisienne de Production - Philippe Bober, Solal Coutard, Susanne Marian
Strausberger Platz 17
10243 Berlin, Germany
Tel: +33 33658729061
E-mail: solal@coproductionoffice.eu
Social Media: @coproduction_office - Instagram, @solalcoutard - Instagram, Philippe Bober - LinkedIn, Solal Coutard - LinkedIn

PRODUCTION 3:
Plattform Produktion - Erik Hemmendorff
Vallgatan 9D
411 16 Göteborg, Sweden
Tel: +46 46 705 75 04 63
E-mail: erik@plattformproduktion.se
Social Media: @plattformproduktion - Instagram, @erik_hemmendorff – Instagram

PRESS OFFICE:
Barbara Van Lombeek - THE PR FACTORY
Tel: +32 486 54 64 80
E-mail: barbara@theprfactory.com

Marie-France Dupagne - THE PR FACTORY
Tel: +32 477 62 67 70
E-mail: mariefrance@theprfactory.com

DDA
Email: DAU@ddaglobal.com