‘The magic of cinema was very seductive to me’: Alena Lodkina on making ‘Petrol’

The main character in Alena Lodkina’s sophomore feature Petrol may be a filmmaker of Russian background, but the writer-director insists it’s a personal tale, not necessarily an autobiographical one.

The film follows Bump star Nathalie Morris as Eva, an impressionable Russian-Australian film student, who befriends an enigmatic performance artist named Mia (Hannah Lynch). She quickly takes hold of her imagination, and as Eva moves in with Mia and their lives grow more and more entwined, she sets ...