Variety magazine, Hollywood’s inside trade magazine names Azerbaijan-born Russian filmmaker Anna Melikyan as one of 10 directors to watch this year.

For the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Competition, the 32-year old submits “Mermaid,” an update of the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale that breaches cold realism with colorful fantasy for a style she calls “neorealism.” The film’s heroine is Alisa, a girl with the power to grant wishes, who falls in love with Alexander, a semi-suicidal realtor who sells real estate on the moon. “Mermaid” follows Melikyan’s 2004 freshman debut, “Mars,” about a Russian toy factory and a love story between a dreamer and a librarian. In an e-mail responding to The Park Record’s questions through a translator, Melikyan shares her thoughts about her film and Sundance.

How do you feel you made the fairytale of the mermaid modern? Why did you choose the story of the mermaid?

I’ve never had an intention to screen fairytale “Mermaid” by Anderson. Although it was my favorite one in childhood because of its sad end. The case is that this script was growing in a strange way, made from different notes and episodes. And when it began to shape up I understood that this is the plot of “Mermaid” a girl falls in love with prince and gave her life for him.

What are the ways Alisa inhabits the role of a mermaid?

One shouldn’t take it word-for-word. She isn’t a mermaid with a fishtail. For me, mermaids symbolize victimhood, and Alisa also has that quality about her. But it is not tragic or realized victimhood, she makes a sacrifice with smile. That’s why when she dies at the end, she is not slaughtered, it’s an accident. And Alisa told about it as a matter of fact: “This often happens in the big city.”

The first half of “Mermaid” is about a girl, Alisa, whose mother prevents her from making her wishes come true. Her childhood in a little seaside town is full of disappointment. What is the significance of Alisa’s relationship to her mother? What is the significance of these broken promises?

It was very important for the subject that Alisa lives with her mother. The topic of relationships between mother and daughter has haunted me for a long time ago. And when the grandmother appeared in the script it was clarified that this is intergenerational continuity, total female loneliness. If Alisa survives it, her destiny might be to become her unmarried mother like some kind of bad inheritance.

Alisa and her family are forced to move to Moscow after a hurricane flattens their hometown. Talk about the contrast between the city and country life in the film.

Moscow wasn’t a principal point, I just needed a big metropolis and Moscow happened to be the nearest one. At first, we even didn’t want to specify what city it was.

For a girl who grew up in hovel on the sea, Moscow is like outer space, another planet. Everybody looks to the capital seeking a better life. People always have a feeling that somewhere far away there is a place, city, where you will be happy and only when you reach it do you understand that this city is inside you and only and that when you improve the world inside, you really feel good. Why does Alisa fall in love with Alexander, the wealthy suicidal realtor?

You know there is a Russian saying: if jack’s in love he’s no judge of jill’s beauty 🙂 Of course that’s a joke, but every joke has some element of the truth. The truth is that love fortunately grows not from head, logic or brains but from heart, feelings and emotions, in other world love doesn’t fall for our logic explanation and this is wonderful.

“Mermaid’s” cast of characters is dominated by females. What kind of statements about women are you making in Mermaid?

None. I realize neither governmental nor social work. I just make films and, as a rule, they are very personal. I suppose they are female films as I am a woman. And if my films turn out female with a dominating female subject, this happens unconsciously, just because this subject is closer and more understandable to me. As I’m writing my scenarios myself it is easier for me to write about the topics I know.

What is the significance of finding the humor and beauty in a scene for you as a filmmaker? You seem to find it everywhere in this film.

I’m glad that you have spotted it. Humor is indeed my main tool and my main principle in life. If you want to understand truth, just find a funny side and you will see it in a full swing. They often ask me what films come next, I always say I have no idea, but there will be humor in them for sure. I just cannot imagine my films without humor.

In many ways, “Mermaid’s” cinematography breaks with convention. I know in 2000 you won the City of Melbourne Award for best short experimental film at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Do you consider “Mermaid” experimental? How so?

I never treated my films as experimental ones. I make movies for viewers. Movies for me are, in a way, a means to see life. I ask myself questions and try to answer them thorough a film. I can’t say I found all the answers, but I’ve started.

What challenges did you face while making this film?

The biggest challenge for me was the fact that I made the movie being very pregnant. It was the 7th and 8th months of pregnancy. Now I realize that it was very stupid and dangerous, but then I was just eager to make this movie. What filmmakers inspire you? Why?

I’m inspired and influenced by many films and mainly, by films I saw as a child and in my high school. I didn’t watch anything special before I started working on “Mermaid,” but I did have one particular film in mind called “Lived Once a Song-Thrush” by Otar Ioseliani. I wanted to create something as light, ironic and thought-provoking as his film. What do you hope the Sundance Film Festival audiences walk away thinking or feeling after watching “Mermaid”?

Here a true miracle starts. Each viewer after watching a movie derives and takes with him his own meaning of which you didn’t think at all, and often it is more profound and interesting than you initially tried to convey through your film. And this is the main thing about it, this feedback, when a person starts thinking about something personal, not even directly related to the film, but it is the film that provokes these thoughts. This is why you make a film.

What do you think of Sundance and American cinema? How does it differ from Russian cinema?

I will take part in Sundance for the first time, so I have nothing special to say, no personal impressions. I know Sundance as one of the most serious festivals where the focus is CINEMATOGRAPHY. I like that very much. Regarding American cinema I can say that it is very much alike with that image of metropolis in my film, it’s like another planet where very different worlds interlace and somehow exist together, and everyone can find here what he is interested in.

What are you looking forward to at Sundance?

I hope I will have time to watch good films and to get inspired for my next steps.

“Mermaid”

Screenings:

Thursday, Jan. 24, 9 a.m., Egyptian Theatre, Park City Friday, Jan. 25, 6:30 p.m., Redstone Cinemas, Kimball Junction Saturday, Jan. 26, 11:30 a.m., Prospector Square Theatre, Park City