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Lillian

When the American Dream of a Russian immigrant does not come true, she decides to walk home from New York.

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Deze voorstelling maakt deel uit van Rialto Filmclub met als gastspreker deze maand Ernst-Jan Pfauth.

Lillian

The deafening metropolis of New York, a rustling cornfield somewhere in the Midwest, a lonely beach on the Bering Strait... Connect these three places with a line and you get Lillian's approximate route, Lillian here being Russian immigrant Lillian Alling. In 1927, after concluding that her American Dream would not come true, she decided to return to Russia – on foot, having no money to travel any other way. She set out to walk across the United States and Canada toward the Bering Strait, and eventually went missing without a trace.

Austrian director Andreas Horvath stumbled upon her story fifteen years ago and was so fascinated by it that he decided to make it into a film. He set it in our present day, as the reality of the American Dream is no different today. He did not have a complete script; improvisation, chance encounters and chance events form the backbone of this epic road movie. With Patrycja Planik in the lead role.

de Volkskrant