Filmed over 14 years, the movie Something Better To Come tells an intimate story of 11-year-old Yula, who grows up in one of the most desolate places on Earth: the Svalka, the biggest garbage dump in Europe which lies 20 km outside the center of Moscow. Surrounded by barbed wire and guards, the area is closely monitored to keep intruders out. But in the junkyard lives a group of people in a small, lawless society. These people make up Yula’s closest family; here she lives her life, and from here her future springs.
Yula has a dream about all that is to come – a dream about changing her life and escaping the desolate land of her childhood. She and her family live in the shadow of the abundance of the big city – in one of Russia’s many junkyards where people live off sorting waste from the big city. The Svalka is a lawless parallel society where ordinary people have come together in their fight for survival. A life where vodka is better than hard cash, where the waste mafia and corrupt police officers pose a constant threat to the waste pickers’ lives, and where the waste and the impotence feels like quicksand dragging people deeper and deeper into poverty.
For a period of 14 years, the film follows Yula’s life – from her innocent childhood games with the other children to her first love as a teenager, and until she, as a grown woman, realizes that her future lies not in the Svalka. For although fate has not been kind to Yula, and she’s seen more misery than most adults will ever come across, she still has an indomitable ability to survive. She knows that her courage, hopes and dreams will one day take her away from the junkyard. For as long as you live, you can dream – and dreams will come true someday.
