A GIRL CALLED MARS

Mars – A Russian ‘Femme Nikita’ is no ordinary girl – as a child she lived through the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl and is filled with enough radiation poisoning to set of Geiger counters. One perverse side effect is the radiation burned out the receptors in her brain that register pain and pleasure.​

Now, decades later, Mars lives life fast on the streets of Moscow. She is beautiful, sick, damaged and doesn’t give a damn. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders: a hybrid of human and nuclear mishap. Never having experienced love because of her mother’s warning that it would be unfair to both herself and her lover due to her short life expectancy. Her father is killed in front of her by gangsters who dominate the economic and social geography. Her mother decides to take them to America to be able to dream again but dies in transit so Mars is forced to survive the harsh reality of Los Angeles with just the name `Kristov’ whispered to her by her mother as she is gunned down by border security.​

Mars becomes involved in a love triangle with Kristov the Russian Godfather in Los Angeles and Vlad, a young Russian American hood, as she attempts to rise in the Russian gangster hierarchy. What ensues is a complex love story and quest for survival set against a backdrop of organic violence and incestuous nuclear karma.​

Written and directed by Ash Baron-Cohen ​