Mermaid (Russian: Русалка, Rusalka) is a Russian 2007 fantasy comedy-drama film directed and written by Anna Melikyan. It is a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale "The Little Mermaid". It was a box office success in Russia, won numerous awards, including at Sundance Film Festival for best Dramatic Directing, and was selected as Russia's official submission to Foreign-Language Film category for the 2009 Academy Awards. Plot As a child Alisa lives with her mother and grandmother near the sea and waits for the return of her father, a sailor her mother had a brief affair with. When Alisa learns that her mother is having trysts with their boarder she sees it as her mother's betrayal of her father and burns down the house. After an eclipse of the sun, Alisa stops talking. Alisa is then sent to a school for mentally disabled children, where she discovers a magical ability to fulfill her wishes. After wishing to move away and causing a hurricane, she, her mother, and grandmother move to Moscow. Though Alisa is initially excited by the move she is forced to take menial jobs which make her miserable. Alisa tries to enter university, but does not earn enough points on the entrance exam. After wishing that she could study at the university the student who had placed just above her dies in a car accident qualifying her for school. After a miserable 18th birthday Alisa contemplates suicide by jumping off a bridge. Before she can jump a more determined man jumps first. In shock Alisa jumps in after the stranger and saves his life. Instantly falling in love Alisa begins to talk again. The stranger's name is Sasha and while initially welcoming of Alisa in the morning, after he sobers up, he is rude and dismissive. Though Alisa tells him she is a ballerina he hires her as a cleaner. Sasha scams people by selling them property on the Moon, Venus, and Mars. To escape what he is doing he parties every night and then becomes suicidal. Alisa rescues him a second time but in the morning he once again is rude and cruel. Returning to Sasha's home a third night Alisa meets a woman named Rita who tells her that a simple spell to win a man's heart is to smoke a cigarette with his name on it. Rita and Alisa smoke cigarettes together, unaware