tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37379150538294705542024-03-14T03:32:48.263-07:00Soviet and Post-Soviet Visionsgiuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.comBlogger191125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-88428184411362591992019-05-14T06:47:00.002-07:002019-05-14T06:47:44.120-07:00Six Musicians and the City- the Return of the Southern Gaze. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cv0Z24kM-AbQAzTNRLPc_nPHgYEn04XOyS0YcEgquhlf07fV0QT-n2iIOsNnV-jJLhTeixxWl2ze2EaIYQBh5wMBRrC2AKET4OxTBxUznvHrBQkQwy5NWB7ccJnTAhW2pDK7TpFQarg/s1600/six+musicians+and+the+city+%2528photo%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="700" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cv0Z24kM-AbQAzTNRLPc_nPHgYEn04XOyS0YcEgquhlf07fV0QT-n2iIOsNnV-jJLhTeixxWl2ze2EaIYQBh5wMBRrC2AKET4OxTBxUznvHrBQkQwy5NWB7ccJnTAhW2pDK7TpFQarg/s320/six+musicians+and+the+city+%2528photo%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>This evening <a href="http://www.pushkinhouse.org/events/2019/5/14/film-screening-six-musicians-and-the-city-by-tatiana-daniliyants">in London at Pushkin House</a> - May 14th - there will be a unique opportunity to see Tatiana Daniliyants' extraordinary film about Yerevan through the eyes of six of the city's most accomplished musicians. An occasion not to be missed. As I tried to argue in an article for Desist Film (in September 2017) the film represents a rare strand of documentary in Russian film. A city glance with a lightness of touch that both Khutsiev and Danelija (now both recently departed) had but few have held since. Hoping that people in London will take the opportunity to go to see this film. </i><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Amongst Russian documentary filmmakers there is
arguably only one, Tatiana Daniliyants, who restores a vivid and lucid anthropological
glance on the city. Not the city of Moscow (although a very early, and very
rarely shown, film of hers ‘U’ did feature that city) but ‘southern cities’. If
Venice was pictured through the labour of its artisans and craftsmen in her <i>Venice Afloat</i>, then Yerevan comes alive
through music or, more precisely, through musicians (one of whom with a certain
amount of irony, given Armenia’s landlocked status, named his band The Armenian
Naval Orchestra). This symbiosis captured between a city and the labour or the
voice of its inhabitants means that Daniliyants’ films are not city films in the
conventional sense of the city symphony film but a film about the lived in and
the living, breathing city. This is something rather unusual in Russian
documentaries which, more often than not, demonstrate a preference for either
individual portraits, taut psychological explorations of inner worlds, or will
explore a milieu without linking them to any wider sense of the topography of
this milieu. Private, inner spaces are all too rarely<b> </b>opened up into broader civic spaces. Fortunately, Tatiana
Daniliyants represents a noble exception by rescuing the viewer from that
claustrophobia of these rigid psychological portraits and instead placing her
protagonists very much within the cityscape.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"> </span>Danilyants’ latest film – Six Musicians and a
City- is an exceptionally successful representation of place. Not place alone,
but place and destiny, place and history as some extraordinary chronical
footage demonstrates. Central to the film is the image of a city recovering,
overcoming the trauma of earthquakes, wars, blockades and near famine of the
late 1980s and early 1990s (as well as the genocide of a century ago). A film
dedicated to physical survival and the survival of voices, the endurance of
history and culture. Moreover, the city is present in many guises: the centre
and the periphery, the city as memory, the city as architectural and cultural
history, the city as nature, the city as coincidental meeting place, the city
as fleeting impressions as well as its bar and club life, the city as one
imbued simultaneously with nostalgia and a
forward-looking drive. All this is the backdrop to the six musicians <b>‘</b>tour<b>’</b> of Yerevan. For a documentary filmmaker choosing six protagonists
could well be a risky strategy but here it is a winning strategy precisely
because of their diverse ways of illuminating the city and how they are themselves
reflected in the topography.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The six musicians come from different
generations, have different musical styles and reveal different Yerevans. So,
for example, Arto Tuncboyaciyan the avantgarde folk musician and leader of the
‘Armenian Navy Band’ reveals to the viewer his origins as an Armenian singer in
Turkey and the influence that growing up there had on his music. Though his
links to the city and even to the Armenian language are more tenuous than
others, he, interestingly, reveals most powerfully a sense of what the survival
of Armenian culture meant in adverse situations. Indeed, the very concept behind the naming of
his band along with his explanations of his music as an outlet of his situation
in the exclusionary reality of Turkey places his music as an articulation of
the universal moment of Armenian culture. Which is not to say that the other musicians
were any less international. Malkhas, a jazz player and festival organiser and
a wonderful racconteur, along with Forsh, a bard and a composer both ‘made it’
internationally (whether in the United States or Argentina), revealing the ease
with which Armenian culture travels internationally and<b>,</b> given their return to their native land and contribution to Yerevan<b>,</b> this hints at how the role of the
emigrant in Armenian culture seems less dramatic than that of one in, say,
Russian culture. The duduk player, Jivan Gaspariyan, also an international
traveller with his music, represents perhaps the most traditionalist musician
and holds the most nostalgic glance on the city. Yet he, even with his memories
of the city (imbued as they are with a melancholic nostalgia for a smaller,
bygone Yerevan) does not dismiss the contemporary, larger Yerevan. One of the
most extraordinary portraits is of the bard Lilith Pipoyan who finds
inspiration in many different eras of Armenian musical and poetic history and
illuminates not just those times but also presents us both the Soviet and the
peripheral Yerevan alongside a Yerevan based in its milennial history. Grandiose
Soviet distilleries appear alongside the ancient Yerevan fortress while then later<b> </b>being shown peripheral Yerevan’s Constructivist
buildings. It is the youngest musician, Michael Voskanyan, an ethno-jazz
musician playing the ‘Tar’ instrument, who represents the youngest generation of musicians. Interestingly his choosen
spaces are the least ‘city-like’ of all: Voskanyan finds shelter in those green, natural spaces still present in Yerevan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> While all epochs of Armenian history are
represented here, it is the trauma of the late eighties and early nineties
which plays a central role in the film. Through
different generational perspectives (those who lived through it as adults and
those only recently born at the time) as well as through different optics – at
times tragic, mournful backdrops which are also sometimes lightened with
romantic anecdotal memories such as Malkash’s<b> </b>tale of his traipse through Yerevan on a gloomy and murky early
winter morning to be greeted with a <i>rumka
</i>of vodka at the currency exchange kiosk. Each account of the nineties –
that ‘lost time’ for Armenia – is accompanied by found footage of the time (and
this is one of those extra layers of the film that makes it such a rich and
rewarding viewing experience), contrasting it with contemporary Yerevan shown
in all its splendour, managing to avoid glamour but clearly demonstrating a
love for its aesthetic beauty. Notes of criticism or a restrained sadness about Yerevan’s transformation are heard –
Malkash’s story of the transformation of the <i>Kopeechka </i>bar into <i>Martini</i>
as well as Jivan Gasparyan’s comment that Yerevan has become more a city of
businessmen than of artists<b>: </b>though this
is not a film that dismisses the transformation. Far from it, as scenes later
in the film show, for example, we are<b> </b>impressed
by Malkash’s stories about his own contribution to a recent cultural
renaissance in the Yerevan jazz scene and the touching scene of Gasparyan
walking around the city with his son.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tatiana Daniliyants’ extraordinary film is witness to the
individuality of her gaze in the Russian documentary scene. A conglomeration of
geographical influences<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">:</b> she is of Armenian
descent but then has been connected for many years with Venice, her childhood
was spent in Algeria and she has often worked alongside Polish cinematic
maitres. All this may partially account for this opening up of cityscapes, and
her unique ability to re-explore the civic without the more rigid psychological
tautness that accompanies much of the ‘Russian school of documentary
filmmaking’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film is as such a
testament, too, to the vibrancy of Armenian culture (it is, indeed, such an
indelible presence in Russian culture, too, one can roll off the names of Valery
Brusov, Andrey Bely, Osip Mandelstham, Vassily Grossman and Andrey Bitov as an
indicator of how much Armenia has meant to Russian cultural figures). Indeed,
for Daniliyants, one could argue that the conduit (her own ‘naval ship’ if we
are to think of Arto Tuncboyaciyan’s prescient and pregnant metaphor) was that
truly monumental Armenian figure of Soviet cinema, Sergo Parajanov whose visit
to Venice was the subject of an extraordinary recent exhibition of Daniliyants’
art work and of a small film of hers. The Parajanov whose photo hangs along
with those of that extraordinary actor Frunzik Mkurtichyan and others in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Martini </i>bar appearing at the beginning
of the film- part of that great conglomeration of Armenian artistic figures who
at the beginning of the film are the subject of Malkash’s recollections and
nostalgia. Let’s hope that Moscow will get this treatment some day (whether in
documentary or in feature films): a city glance with a lightness of touch
rarely seen since the 1960s and, coincidentally, it was<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>southerners back then, like those great recently departed Marlen Khutsiev and Georgij Danelija who managed
this in such memorable films as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Walking
the Streets of Moscow, Ilich gate </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">July
Rain</i>. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-73340399683904129552018-04-13T02:16:00.000-07:002018-04-23T03:30:57.336-07:00Exploring Captivity: Some films to look out for at this year's DOKer Festival<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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DOKer is taking place in April this year and the opening film will be shown this evening (April 13th). A festival which sees a refocus back on films from closer to home- instead of the one or two films being from Russia or Russian-themed this year there are several as well as other films from its near abroad or at least from Central and Eadtern Europe. This though hasn't meant that the type and quality of film has been decisively different. Indeed as regards quality one can safely say that the festival is going from strength to strength. Here's an initial list of films that I'd recommend that viewers should definitely not miss.<br />
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One of the most accomplished films visually and its ability to enthrall the viewer with an impressive narrative drive is Emmauel Gras's <b>Makala. </b>Gras manages to link together many seemingly disparate threads- the almost total lack of dialogue, the superb painterly frames and an attention to the physiognomic grandeur of the protagonist whose Sisyphean tale of backbreaking labour for little return provides both the mythological and social backdrop to this stunning film. There is little surprise that the film went to Cannes and has already received enormous attention and acclaim from film critics. The church scene at the end of the film is a powerful adjunct, almost offering a visual depiction of sociological processes- the isolation of the protagonist and the extraordinary spatial dynamics of this scene give us more than a hint as to the social and metaphysical mythology of the film. This slow-burning but gripping tale of a modern-tale Job mesemerizes the viewer in a way that only the best cinema can do.<br />
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The film<b> Makala </b>in many ways prefigures two of the dominant themes of the festivals: one minor and another more major theme which runs through most of the festival films. The minor theme- that of the journey- is most explicitly explored in <b>The Fifth Sun</b>, a film by Cristiana Pecci and Matteo Maggi. At least explicitly because towards the end of the film its explicit theme is overturned in a masterful way by the protagonist. This seemingly straightforward exploration of wanderlust then becomes thrown into absolute chaos by its protagionist. But what could destroy the film only makes it stronger by then becoming a film that questions its own purpose and, more important, raises a reflexive question about the role of the filmmakers. Involuntarily, it seems, the filmmakers are forced to ask themsleves whether or nor they are the real hostage takers?<br />
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The filmmaker of <b>A Woman Captured, </b>Bernadett Tuza-Ritter wants to give another answer to this question and, indeed in the cirscumstances of the film, it would seem hard to excuse any other behaviour. Learning that her documentary protagonist is, in fact, literally a slave to her 'employer', an invisible, but unpleasantly audible, middle class tyrant who forces 'Marish' into back-breaking work and finding every possible schema to extort money from her (even the documentary filmmaker must pay this contemporary matriarchal slave merchant for the ability to film her servant). Tuza-Ritter decides that recording this situation is not enough and helps the protagonist set in train the conditions for liberation. Thus giving the filmmaker a role directly opposed to that which seems to be present in <b>The Fifth Sun.</b> It has often been one of the central concerns of Russian filmmakers, most accepting their role as non-interveners and some, like Dvortsevoy, because of this constraint abandoning documentary film. Tuza-Ritter's intervention seems hard to argue with and does make for memorable cinema.<br />
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Another portrait of captivity and is that of Till Schauder's <b>When God Sleeps</b> which is, in many ways, a conventional portrait of a hostage of the 'Salman Rushdie of Rap', Shahin Najafi. The filmmaker here observes and it is the protagonists willpower and refusal of submission that finds the way of liberation by refusing to fully submit to the web of fear that Iranian authorities want to weave around him and his group. The filmmaker adds all the context one would expect but one is intrigued by a number of the strands going through the film. One os the singer's relationship with a daughter of one of Iran's conservative elite and another is the singer's engagement with the refugee issue. So it soon becomes clear that the film doesn't play solely to a discourse of the 'danger of Islam' but to a much wider one of the danger of an all encompassing captivity.<br />
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DOKer's opening film tonight (April 13th), <b>Over the Limit</b>, is one which has impressed many documentary festivals and should undoubtedly have a wide resonance beyond the festival circuit. The Polish filmmaker, Marta Prus, having been a member of a rhythm gymnastics sports club certainly managed to lend this film a great force in revealing the dynamics of the almost unbearable relationship between Russian gymnast, Rita Mamun and her trainers who explicitly see in her not a human being but simply an athlete. The behaviour of the 'bad cop', Irina Viner-Usmanova, is revealed as a systematic pattern of humiliation. Given Viner-Usmanova's place in Russian society (married to one of the country's richest oligarchs) this could be seen as a powerful indictment of more than just the narrow sphere of rhythm gymnastics. However, like many of the other protaginists in the documentary films there is a coda once again stating that, here too, the protagonist finally released herself from the grip of her captors. The physical backdrop of the film may be unchanging although the beauty of the gymnasts flights in air is very well-captured, but the film as a whole is held together by the claustrophobic psychological dymanics of trainer-gymnast relationship and the powerful drama that this releases.<br />
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<b>Jackal Stories </b>once again proves that Argentinian docmentary has so much to offer its Russian colleagues. In many ways it seems to offer some polar opposite or at least this is the impression gained from those Argentinian films shown in Russian documentary festivals. The hynoptic <b>Chechen Family </b>by Martin Sola' pointed the way to a totally original way of filming Chechnya and almost literally froze the Russian audience when it was shown a few years ago. Now Martin Farina's experimental film can also be expected to astound the Russian audience with its way of building on a family archive footage in a way that is so much more anarchic than Russian filmmakers have hitherto managed to do. If Mansky's <b>Private Chronicles </b>is accompanied by Mansky's customary commentary, Farina's films cnsists in a magnificent series of experiments in genres and styles, eluding the controlling authorial voice. By backgrounding what a Russian documentarist may foreground and undermining the cinematic borders that haven't been called into question so much on Russian documentary makes this perhaps the most experimental work of the festival and hopefully will prick the curiosity of Russian filmmakers searching for a way out of dominant and domineering constraints. Latin American film had hitherto been well-represented at DOKer Festivals- this time it is the only film from that area of the world. Most definitively a film not to be missed.<br />
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Anastasia Miroshnichenko's film <b>Debut</b> continues with the theme of captivity and escape in an almost literal way given that it is set in a Belarussian female penal colony. The inmates are preparing to put on a play at the local theatre. This allows the filmmaker to delve into the individual biographies of the women. Through their work on the rehearsals and through their reactions to the play we learn more than we would otherwise in a more straightforward 'social documentary' precisely because their part in the play is also their chance to reveal their own personal dramas. Miroshnichenko also captures brilliantly and visually routine everyday prison life at the colony. She masterfully avoids the pitfalls of a cinema of pure denunciation as well as those of a feel good movie.<br />
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Other films to watch out for are Balint Revesz's <b>Granny Project</b>, an integenerational exploration of memory and the process of it being recounted between generations. Between revelation and reticence the viewer explores the gaps both between and among generations. Here too the protagonists are captives of, in that Joycean phrase, 'of a nightmare from which (we) are trying to awake'. The captive of this film is the young pre-adolescent <b>Alicia </b>who is caught in a web of institutional logic after abandonment by her mother. The Dutch director, Maasja Ooms, would be best known to the Russian film conoisseur as the cinematographer of what is probably the best cinematographic portrait of a literary figure of recent years, namely Aliona von der Horst's exploration of the life and surroundings of Urals poet, Boris Rhyzy. It is said that Chinese documentary film is one of the world's best unkept secrets and Wang Yang's film <b>Weaving</b> certainly gives some hope that this may be the case. Not a film for those seeking spectacle, this intricate film centres on the demolition of a town and a factory associated with the early years of Mao's rule, this film follows two families and the effect of this demolition. It captures both the intimate struggles and the quarrels over inheritance and the strained family relations in general as well as the gradual story of the demolition of homes and factory. The web being weaved here is that of the inexorable logic of property development and Chinese capitalism. Alas, here there is no flight from captivity other than the banishment decreed by the inhumane and incessant logic of property development itself.<br />
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<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-66387499495876792442018-04-09T09:01:00.000-07:002018-04-09T09:01:34.433-07:00Russian Documentaries at Pushkin House.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbxiaG3oENmTNAoShAu4gMAEqhJi0d66WM-TGirU_JziQHzELRi8x_VVRITHT7Z0shp-jiRdZCTklN60ZixbhZIc2H5kByM5b21UsRIz5EuGofCTFJUAr-5knOKhPsI2YkarIMk_RIyM/s1600/Victoria_Lomasko.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbxiaG3oENmTNAoShAu4gMAEqhJi0d66WM-TGirU_JziQHzELRi8x_VVRITHT7Z0shp-jiRdZCTklN60ZixbhZIc2H5kByM5b21UsRIz5EuGofCTFJUAr-5knOKhPsI2YkarIMk_RIyM/s320/Victoria_Lomasko.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Victoria Lomasko and her graphic documentary drawings.</td></tr>
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In early May <a href="http://www.pushkinhouse.org/">Pushkin House</a> (the major Russian cultural centre in London) will be showing two Russian documentaries in what will hopefully be a rolling programme of documentary films shown there (and hopefully in a host of other centres both in and outside of London). The first two films to be shown in early May are included as part of the<a href="http://www.pushkinhouse.org/next-exhibition/"> excellent exhibition of Victoria Lomasko's graphic documentary reportage </a>which describes a whole host of rarely reported (or in some cases completely unreported) stories of contemporary Russia. The Lomasko exhibition is therefore one of the rare opportunities to start to grasp a real Russia from which one can slowly piece together an entirely different picture of today's Russia. Far from the headlines of spy scandals and geopolitical intrigue, Lomasko foregrounds the voices of those roundly ignored by all. And indeed the first two documentaries to be shown at Pushkin House reflect some of these subject matter and stories which Lomasko worked on.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5drYkSbf78vlbHKR4gTwT36MCmbqzop5Ggu5npN777oxPpmUnbMAIl88JGQZm6YvPRLzaFWCGYyK_cdcqLhxS13D9oq7jY8gCVKjNy08PX3nkJw9RNHrCbsv5ONueRMuaQmnyLEWQ-k/s1600/Songs+of+Abdul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5drYkSbf78vlbHKR4gTwT36MCmbqzop5Ggu5npN777oxPpmUnbMAIl88JGQZm6YvPRLzaFWCGYyK_cdcqLhxS13D9oq7jY8gCVKjNy08PX3nkJw9RNHrCbsv5ONueRMuaQmnyLEWQ-k/s1600/Songs+of+Abdul.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poster for Anna Moiseenko's 'Songs of Abdul'</td></tr>
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On <a href="http://www.pushkinhouse.org/events/2018/5/2/film-screening-songs-of-abdul-by-anna-moiseenko">Wednesday May 2nd Anna Moiseenko's film Songs of Abdul</a> will be shown. Moiseenko, a student of Russia's most indefitagible pedagogue of documentary cinema formation and an impressive filmmaker in her own right (Marina Razbezhkina), has suceeded in this fascinating portrait of Abdulmamad Bekmamadov in a number of extraordinary ways of portraying the protagonist which illuminates the very social fabric of contemporary Russia. Often Russian documentaries concentrate on individual protagonists within their social sphere or in some cases they branch out towards collective portraits (some particulary fine examples focusing on collective subject matter was Daria Khlestkina's <b>The Last Limousine</b> and some of Alina Rudnitskaya's documentaries also manage to go beyond this whether through her emphasis on both social institutions [the abortion clinic, the civil registry office] and the work collective [Catastrophe] or both [Blood]). Moiseenko, however, while moving from a collective tale (in her first major work she depicts life in a commune trying to restore a Soviet like utopianism in her feature-length debut <b>SPARTA: The Territory of Happiness)</b> to this more individual portrait of Abdul, a migrant from the Pamir Mountains, she manages to portray the interweaving realities that Abdul negotiates and so, more thoroughly reveal social realities. For Abdul's life holds within it widely differing social realities. A migrant dependent on low-skilled jobs for survival (and subject to many of the harsh realities of that Central Asian migrants face in Moscow) he is also a bard and much of the film consists of the songs that emerge and that relate his everyday tribulations. Abdul's life therefore is not so much narrated by the filmmaker but self-narrated through his songs. It is worth noting that it was very much thanks to one of the <a href="https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/9852/mikhail-ugarov-remembering-the-father-of-russias-new-drama-movement">most extraordinary figures of contemporary Russian theatre, Mikhail Ugarov,</a> (who sadly has recently passed away) that such a film eventually got made. For without Ugarov and Gremina's wonderful teatr.doc which opened up Russian drama to real contemporary stories and people, Moiseenko may never have got to meet the extraordinary protagonist of the film whose show was put on there. For those who do get to see Anna Moiseenko's film at Pushkin House there are many splendid moments in the film. One of my favourite scenes is Abdul at the Golden Mask award ceremonies, to me it is a wonderful depiction of contemporary Russian society replete with an undertone of Gogolesque comedy. The film itself has become something of a catalyst for further events. Last summer a massively attended festival of Pamir culture was organised along with a showing of the film. Something that may be repeated soon with the organisers extending this to include other Central Asian cultures.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYUqMHo4abLyni47SOArR6yvPnp81mmnDVh04-nQd38kEwaZ6GFl5XF_DSuD8KBeT4Jbt2SVtQcdhG5kJVUZlL4yI_kfWci0W-TejGg45kEW8eggXz6vPpVKd4zUjVl5KAqeEzmLHSSdk/s1600/Abdulmamad+Bekmamadov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYUqMHo4abLyni47SOArR6yvPnp81mmnDVh04-nQd38kEwaZ6GFl5XF_DSuD8KBeT4Jbt2SVtQcdhG5kJVUZlL4yI_kfWci0W-TejGg45kEW8eggXz6vPpVKd4zUjVl5KAqeEzmLHSSdk/s1600/Abdulmamad+Bekmamadov.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The protagonist of Moiseenko's 'Songs of Abdul' (Abdulmamad Bekmamadov)</td></tr>
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The other film which Pushkin House is showing in early May is Konstantin Selin's <b><a href="http://www.pushkinhouse.org/events/2018/5/3/film-screenigchronicles-of-revolution-that-didnt-happen-by-konstantin-selin">Chronicles of a Revolution That Didn't Happen. </a> </b>Konstantin Selin's is another piece of Russian reality that has rarely been reported either by the international or the mainstream media. Selin's film on the long-distance truckers strike in Russia rarely made it to the international media (or even to the Russian mainstream media). [It was only thanks to admirable sites such as <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia">opendemocracy ru</a> and <a href="https://therussianreader.com/">the Russian Reader</a> that the story did get out at all]. Yet it was an extraordinarily story. One brilliantly captured by Victoria Lomasko's graphic drawings and also by this film. A film which recounts the long strike that Russian truckers participated in and their growing political consciousness gained through their self-organisation and their experience of repression once their first timid moves of protest were rebuffed and the reality of the state corporate system of corruption was made clear to them in no uncertain terms. Selin's film follows the protagonists and reveals more about the present state of Russia than one could possibly gean from the media. The emergence and struggles of independent trade unions in post-Soviet Russian is not an entirely new subject for contemporary Russia cinema (Svetlana Baskova made an admirable feature film For Marx which went to the Berlin Film Festival and was based on her earlier documentary on independent trade unions) but it is certainly a real rarity to be able to watch such a film in the UK.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chronicles of a Revvolution That Didn't Happen.</td></tr>
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<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-29405906508249882422017-11-17T15:26:00.005-08:002017-12-24T10:59:54.924-08:00From Moscow's Central Cultural Venue to Mausoleum: The Sad Decline of its Cinema Museum.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Just after it was opened one evening I took a trip to the VDNKh exhibition centre in Moscow to then make my way to the Cinema Museum. Informed by the information desk that this would involve a forty minute walk I set out in the vague direction they told me. Given my melancholic mood full of nostalgic memories of what the old Cinema Museum in Krasnopresnenskaya used to be like, this October evening walk in this hyper Stalinist environment gave me the sense that I was walking through the set of a horror film. The walk was shorter than expected and after about twenty minutes I found myself at the entrance of the building pictured above.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Russia's Culture Ministry had long
starved the previous museum team of any resources for the construction of what,
given Russia's cinematic history and the immense archives that it holds, surely
had the potential of being one of the greatest cinema museums in the world. One
of the chief culprits in this horror movie of a story, is Vladimir
Medinsky, </span><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-medinsky-culture-ministry-thesis-scandal/28771952.html"><span lang="EN-US">with his dodgy PhD</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, who,
after marginalising an equipe full of talent and with an</span><a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/letter-dmitry-medvedev-concerning-naum-kleiman"><span lang="EN-US"> excellent global reputation</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, ensured
that a team headed by those who could be counted on to reflect his strategy of
'patriotic revanche' in the area of culture was in place before construction
would begin on the new building of the Cinema Museum.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Although the news of the re-opening of the Museum this Autumn had been broadcast on a number of national television channels and much was made of it, the amount of people walking around the museum while I was there (the day after the official opening) was never more than four or five. Partly a reflection of the inconvenient location of the building but undoubtedly, too, a reflection of the sheer lack of excitement that this re-opening has been greeted by Russia's cine enthusiasts. There's no doubt that considerable money was put into this venture along with major institutional support once the 'right people' were in charge. The guests at the official opening (Culture Minister Medinsky, Moscow Mayor Sobianin and directors Mikhalkov and Khotinenko) meant that this was meant to be their moment, the moment of this conservative clique of exorcists and demolition men. They had wrested their hands on an institution that in the 1990s and the first five years of the 21st Century daily brought many hundreds to trudge up various flights of stairs and watch and often discuss films for hours afterwards. An institution that had once trul been at the very centre of cultural life in Moscow. Alas in October 2017, however, in spite of a brand new custom-built building, one couldn't help having the feeling that one was walking through a mausoleum, if not a morgue, rather than any vital cultural venue.<br />
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A distorted narrative bandied about by the new team, for example, that the old Cinema Museum hadn't exhibited any of its massive archive in the building in Krasnopresnenskaya (a falsehood once again repeated in a recent interview by Solonitsyna on the TV station Moskva 24) or that the conception of the museum was for a <a href="https://www.kp.ru/daily/26618.7/3634843/">'small group of film scholars and not for the people'</a> was contrived by them to justify their ludicrous usurpation of this Museum. The idea that the old Cinema Museum never exhibited is risible and belied by the video below of the visit by Quentin Tarantino to the Museum during the Moscow Film Festival in the early 2000s (an exhibition by the way which was open to all that summer at the Cinema Museum):<br />
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Given the lavish financial riches that the authorities have clearly given to Solonitsyna, one finally has the chance to see what she has done with this new venue.The space afforded now would surely, in theory, permit world class exhibitions and impress a national and international public given just how rich the material in their possession actually is. Unfortunately, even this large space given Solonitsyna <i>et al</i> has been very poorly handled. One large space was given over to hanging portraits of Soviet actors as though they were members of a 1970s Politbureau. Two dozen or so large photos confront the museum goer as he or she walks through nonplussed as what all this is supposed to bring to their museum experience. This plethora of portraits is fine, say, at the Iluzion Cinema where one could gaze at the photos on the wall of actors throughout the epochs and (unlike in Solonitsyna's Cinema Museum) from all parts of the world while sitting in the cafe. But this eerily absurd room in a Cinema Museum is simply not a tangible museum experience bringing much of value to the museum-goer.<br />
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Another room was filled with costumes of Sergei Soloviev's adaptation of <i>Anna Karenina</i>. The problem, though, is that Soloviev is hardly anymore at the pinnacle of Russian cinema and his adaptation of <i>Anna Karenina</i> can hardly be considered much of a masterpiece to enthuse many cinephiles (I watched it in Odessa sitting in the same row of seats as Kira Muratova and dearly wished throughout the film that I could have watched Kira Georgievna's variation on <i>Anna Karenina</i> rather than Soloviev's distinctly mediocre effort). Soloviev may indeed be just the kind of figure one would expect to profit from the mediocre and retrograde conception of a Cinema Museum favoured by Larisa Solonitsyna and her ilk but wasting such a large amount of space on displaying the costumes of this rather forgettable film (however lovingly this exhibits are displayed) seems to be one of the few tasks that only Larisa Ottovna is capable of.<br />
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The main exhibition space went under the name of 'The Labyrinth of History'. Certainly there are single exhibits which may individually delight. It's interesting to see a copy of Medvedkin's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9X-qLlkq3k">camera gun</a> and there is space devoted to a variety of figures in Soviet cinema, although certainly not all. Curiously Barnet is absent but at least Parajanov is present. But then Parajanov's information plate while noting that he didn't make films for a decade and a half after <i>Sayat Nova</i> does not even bother to mention that he spent a certain part of this period incarcerated in prison camps. An uninformed visitor would be led to assume from the information available here that it was simply the aesthetic dissonance of his vision that caused his absence from cinematography in the 70s and much of the 80s. Texts in the museum are very extensive (I didn't manage to read many of them as my visit was a relatively short one) but it would have been preferable to have an audio guide to rest one's eyes for the exhibits themselves. Yet one more sphere where one can call this museum fully retroguardist. Their 'historical couplings' often veer into the uncannily weird. One section wants to convince us that Bondarchuk's <i>War and Peace</i> can somehow be profitably understood by being set alongside Tarkovsky's <i>Andrei Rublev</i> and that the visitor can draw significant conclusions from these 'parallel' films.<br />
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Then there's the 'international' dimension. Or rather the complete lack of it. Well, with the exception of one aspect. Foreign awards presented to Soviet 'successes' are widely exhibited and one can sense that paroxysm of pride among the national patriots like Mikhalkov's and Solonitsyna's of this world when recalling the Oscar won during World War Two (with a long-winded account of the story of the Oscar statue's journey back from the US to the USSR). The Oscar aside the museum neglects to tell us anything about cinema as an international art and thus so much of interest is utterly squandered. The wax on Medinsky's moribund autarkic historical fantasies is applied liberally while Eisenstein's multicultural, cosmopolitan perspective breathes its last in this atmosphere where the pettily parochial mindset of the present 'authorities' is so firmly stamped.<br />
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Soviet cinema may have been at the vanguard of world cinema once but, alas, you don't get much of a whiff of cinephilic excitement of that period when Soviet cinema really did lead the world in this venue. No amount of graffiti-like portraits of Eisenstein on the walls of the Cinema Museum is going to inspire genuine cinephilia. (Moreover, any casual film buff from foreign shores on a trip to Moscow and who happens upon the museum will find that firstly all the information is solely in Russian and, secondly, while nearly every other museum in Moscow has abandoned the two-tier pricing system for Russians and foreigners, the Cinema Museum has brought it back in- and so charging a foreigner an extra 200 roubles for their ticket. What a contrast to the previous museum where the exhibition in the video above was free of charge and apart from the many free screenings ticket prices were amere 50 roubles).<br />
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From the various interviews in which Larisa Solonitsyna has spoken of her 'conception' of the Cinema Museum you don't really understand whether any intelligent film buff will ever be encouraged to come to the place she describes in her own words (yet alone the actual Museum). Unenthusiastic about including a cinemateque in the concept of a Cinema Museum (Larisa Ottovna seems to think that youtube does away with any idea of the collective viewing of cinematic classics and since you can see masterclasses by major filmmakers on your computer screen why bother inviting any major filmmaker to Moscow either), it's rather hard to imagine how this 'promotion' of the museum is ever going to create the kind of love of film that the old building in Krasnopresnenskaya (and the team behind it) certainly did. Certainly no Godard will ever present a Dolby system to Solonitsyna and clearly the Szabo's, Tarantino's, Dardenne's, Guediguian, Ioseliani's etc etc etc are not going to come <i>en masse</i> here to ВДНХ as they did to the old Cinema Museum. The Museum may have a stand proudly linking the Cinema Museum to all the other major Cinema Museum's throughout the world but given who is in charge here there is little chance of any international cooperation with any of these globally-oriented cinema museums.<br />
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In spite of its relative vicinity to VGIK as well being part of the massive complex of ВДНХ, the Cinema Museum has managed just over 2,000 visitors in four weeks (well under 100 a day). For anyone who can remember the affluence of cinemagoers to the pre-2005 Cinema Museum these are genuinely ridiculous figures. I myself remember watching Fellini's<i> 8 1/2</i> almost inches away from the huge screen because in the largest hall in Krasnopresnenskaya almost every single inch of available space (not just the seats and rows near the seats but literally every space imaginable) had been occupied by avid filmgoers. Kleiman's Cinema Museum surely attracted well over 2,000 in a weekend (rather than in close to a month as is the case here).<br />
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All in all one, one gets the sense that one is visiting a Mausoleum where the spirit of cinema has been coated with lacquer to give it a shiny feel to it and like the Lenin lying in Red Square there is little sense that the exhibits bear any relation to living, breathing entities. The endless display of festival awards and the room of portraits, further, make one feel that after exiting the Cinema Museum that one has just come out of a funeral (the almost funereal politbureau format of the portrait room makes one begin to question why Snow Lake wasn't playing as one walked from portrait to portrait).<br />
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There's a sense that the blanking out of history going on generally with regard to cinema is somehow particularly indicative of the past decade. Whether it's ascribing Parajanov's fifteen year absence from filmmaking purely to his asethetic dissonance with the Soviet style of cinematography or whether it's abandoning the idea that cinema can ever again become a collective experience of engagement and revelation as it was in the old Cinema Museum of Krasnopresnenskaya, there's little chance of this new venue seducing a new generation of cinephiles to savour the real riches of cinematic history. Sadly, the paternalistic, authoritarian style of Solonitsyna et al, and the association of the museum with filmic morticians such as Mikhalkov and Khotinenko who have, in recent years, become little more than cinematic trash merchants makes one aware that as long as their narrow nationalist mindset is the dominant one, it is something of a pipe dream to believe that the cinematic imagination will have much life breathed into it from this institution.<br />
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The grinding repression in the cultural sphere in Russia that is evidently increasing and evidenced, for example, by the trial and imprisonment of Oleg Sentsov, through to the legal persecution of Kirill Serebrennikov <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-serebrennikov-apfelbaum-house-arrest/28819565.html">and others associated with him</a>, <a href="https://philologist.livejournal.com/9804843.html">the possible blacklisting of senior cultural figures and apparent blocking of accreditation for critical journalists at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum</a> as well as the <a href="https://meduza.io/news/2017/11/14/on-lgun-kak-i-ego-nachalnik-konstantin-raykin-o-slovah-zamestitelya-medinskogo-pro-narusheniya-v-teatre-satirikon">persistent harassment of another theatre director, Konstantin Raikin</a>, is reinforced by the imposition of barely competent officials such as Larisa Solonitsyna, ideologically faithful to the conservative turn of Medinsky and Mikhalkov. Figures able only to suck the life out of the institutions they are called upon to lead and to alienate any potential interest in their sphere. One can only hope that this generation of cultural undertakers appointed by a figure who can justifiably be described as Russia's worst Culture Minister in living memory will at some point in the future be swept away to be replaced by the immense talent that undoubtedly exists in Russia's authentic cinematic community.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM2cmERcWJCj8_XQPaVmtomsL2rrXbu13WPkBQDW46oaJ_GBLs7vtopPbB5f7_gyy-SocKLISnh8sQVobUgFA_uW7gOVsuBahYtVq0n7aUxIrxQWeK2RBQcruzYDeYQ8P4dFBfwnt9c1I/s1600/mikhalkov+fuck+off.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="500" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM2cmERcWJCj8_XQPaVmtomsL2rrXbu13WPkBQDW46oaJ_GBLs7vtopPbB5f7_gyy-SocKLISnh8sQVobUgFA_uW7gOVsuBahYtVq0n7aUxIrxQWeK2RBQcruzYDeYQ8P4dFBfwnt9c1I/s320/mikhalkov+fuck+off.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In the meantime one can best avoid any extra tramps to this sad Mausoleum-like external structure and its morgue-like feel within situated in this ultra-Stalinist entertainment park and make one's way to the Tretyakov Gallery where members from the previous team of the Cinema Museum with far fewer resources at their disposal manage t<a href="https://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/events/?program=kinoseansy">o show some excellent programmes as well as new recent releases</a>, hoping one day that the conservative turn in Russian society will be ultimately reversed.<br />
<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-74535521837463247802017-05-31T16:40:00.003-07:002017-06-01T00:19:06.299-07:00News Regarding The Boris Barnet Project.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4f7l3ncV-uI/U80nPa5fxvI/AAAAAAAAJEg/nTpoexLSIic/s413/x71.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4f7l3ncV-uI/U80nPa5fxvI/AAAAAAAAJEg/nTpoexLSIic/s320/x71.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
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Just over two years ago I posted on this blog about a <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2015/05/a-boris-barnet-project.html">project dedicated to the figure of Boris Barnet</a>. A project regarding a filmmaker who left very little in terms of documents, essays, articles to posterity. Only his films, a handful of letters to his fifth and final wife and the sketch miraculously surviving in spite of Barnet's tendency to discard nearly everything in his possession. And yet there are many possible leads. People still alive who knew him (for example his daughter, Olga Barnet; the filmmaker Marlen Khutsiev who worked with him on the film <i>Liana </i>and others who worked with him towards the end of his career). At the presetnt time I am collecting and presenting some material on another blog <a href="https://borisbarnetblog.wordpress.com/">http://borisbarnetblog.wordpress.com </a><br />
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<a href="http://www.kino-teatr.ru/acter/album/327/553754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.kino-teatr.ru/acter/album/327/553754.jpg" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="737" height="246" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here is a short description of the Boris Barnet project<br />
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<b style="background-color: black;">The Boris Barnet project aims to be a project starting off as a blog and then will move to a website domain and eventually lead to a book to be printed by Cygnnet Books (who have produced excellent books on Andrey Tarkovsky and Andrei Zvyagintsev). We aim to produce a selection of images and printed material on this blog much of which is either not publicly available or has been available only in Russian or has been locked up in archives (or published in books and journals long out of print). A series of translations and summaries of articles from Russian will also be gradually published in the months to come. Hopefully this will be a site that both film lovers as well as students of film can turn to in order to discover more about the life and work of one of Russia’s (and the world’s) most interesting film directors.</b></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;">Blogposts (and material on the site) will include the following:</b></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;">Photographs and portraits of Boris Barnet<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Accounts of Barnet’s films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Aspects of Barnet’s cinematographic practice<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Themes in Barnet’s films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Historical background to the films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Synopses of the films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Attempts to describe the locations where the films were shot<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Accounts of actors who starred in Barnet films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Film sequences of Barnet films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Video essays<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Contemporary reviews of Barnet films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Accounts of Barnet’s filmmaking process<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Memoirs of Barnet from those who knew him<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Transcripts from interviews with film scholars and acquaintances of Barnet<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Biographical and other information on the actors in Barnet films<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Information on other members of the film crew (scriptwriters, Directors of Photography, Artistic Directors etc)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Gifs of Barnet scenes<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Screenshots of particular moments in Barnet films</b></div>
<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-91081222742453879752016-12-16T14:26:00.000-08:002016-12-18T05:25:44.766-08:00In Search of Lost Reality (3): Other Films from This Year's Art Doc Fest.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDWvgIlzWhB3tGjdZPRKdArF1fl0a7Oo6HC7Y0TYmGtMAjdUshne8hKt-65kv3R-RRXtWGrY0lQySICvEQdNNYoyb0JkHCBcccLt4q_fAHAi0RueaeQcj_9hdds_9Go__OTGhcLRTKGb4/s1600/AUSTERLITZ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDWvgIlzWhB3tGjdZPRKdArF1fl0a7Oo6HC7Y0TYmGtMAjdUshne8hKt-65kv3R-RRXtWGrY0lQySICvEQdNNYoyb0JkHCBcccLt4q_fAHAi0RueaeQcj_9hdds_9Go__OTGhcLRTKGb4/s320/AUSTERLITZ.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>A frame from Sergei Loznitsa's Austerlitz, one of the most impressive films of the Art Doc Fest</i></b></td></tr>
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It is quite rare to find a film festival where nearly every film watched has something to recommend about it each deserving a single blog post about them. But it is precisely in Russian or Russian-language documentary film festivals that one discovers an extraordinary variety which is not, alas, matched in contemporary Russian-language narrative cinema events. Moreover, it is often the case that some of the most interesting names that have emerged in Russian-language feature films are directors who have also worked with documentary cinema in their careers (and often these directors criss-cross between the two) : this is especially true of two of the biggest names in the post-Soviet firmament- Alexander Sokurov and Sergei Loznitsa. Also among the most interesting of upcoming directors a director like Ivan I. Tverdovsky also has had a grounding in the documentary field. With the increasingly poor selection of films at Russia's <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2016/53-kinotavr27.shtml">showcase festival Kinotavr </a>(as well as the fact that documentaries are increasingly included in the dozen or so competition films shown there: this year two documentaries both already shown at least year's Art Doc Fest were included in the competition programme), it seems that the interest that there is in contemporary Russian cinema would do well to turn to the Russian or Russian-language documentary field rather than feature films in the foreseeable future. <br />
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Here are some of the picks alongside <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.it/2016/12/in-search-of-lost-reality-1-on-10th.html">Konstantin Selin's film that I discussed in a previous blog on this festival</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX123YiRHwcx19M3jbmTnGWJ4MzShBSWTfApNG8p9WmWH3g5_TPud2phk-AFitOSmRHjU8pgAivLaZGDVuY1xTVMG1uEq9uYRnOczajkvTMRBIox1PFucdI26hk3d9SNBC12kMpuaj62E/s1600/Moiseenko_film1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX123YiRHwcx19M3jbmTnGWJ4MzShBSWTfApNG8p9WmWH3g5_TPud2phk-AFitOSmRHjU8pgAivLaZGDVuY1xTVMG1uEq9uYRnOczajkvTMRBIox1PFucdI26hk3d9SNBC12kMpuaj62E/s320/Moiseenko_film1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>A scene from Anna Moiseenko's Songs of Abdul.</i></b></td></tr>
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1) Anna Moiseenko's <b style="font-style: italic;">Songs of </b><b style="font-style: italic;">Abdul</b> is not only one of the few Russian-language documentaries on migrants or migration in recent years (with the notable exception of <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2016/54r-chuzhaia-rabota.shtml">Denis Shabaev's <b><i>Not My Job</i></b></a>) and so deserving of interest for choosing a subject matter that, for some reason, Russian documentary filmmakers rarely choose but is also innovative in a formal way. The narrative commentary formally absent in this film as it is in most films by the <i>razbezhkintsy </i>(former students of Marina Razbezhkina) is, nonetheless, replaced by the songs of the documentary protagonist, Abdumamadi Gulmamad. In many ways not only has Moiseenko found a documentary protagonist who manages to illuminate many (often conflicting) worlds (not simply the world of a migrant but also that of an artist, and moreover, an artist rooted in his own world who finds himself momentarily at the centre of the Moscow art world at a <a href="https://eng.goldenmask.ru/page_1.html">Golden Mask awards ceremony</a>) but who also becomes, in many ways, the Narrating Subject of this film as much as the director through the commentary of the songs. Indeed in many ways the input by the documentary protagonist seems also to add to the humour of this film (the scene of the Golden Mask awards being a case in point). Indeed it manages to be one of the most humorous as well as being one of the most socially innovative films on show at Art Doc Fest. By the protagonist telling his Odyssean tale as migrant through his songs and so structuring the film directed by Anna Moiseenko and shot by her and Ekena Shalkina. Moiseenko and Shalkina illustrated both his homecoming after 10 years to his wife and family in a small village in the Pamir mountains and his life in Moscow along with the endless labour and housing issues that a migrant in Moscow faces as well as the looming threat of deportation that Abdul's fellow migrants faced.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-Ves7u6Hujg7dvB2ZuydUTzBGakoVR83fVbgEBLw9O4cnHTuSREj39Xsy39-1izOacUoUg6CXfv1AHccCReChAAst2vWtG3UViKowF3exRJ5ZNF3PqcXEuvRllJBcCQo79MbJ5aIizg/s1600/Moiseenko.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-Ves7u6Hujg7dvB2ZuydUTzBGakoVR83fVbgEBLw9O4cnHTuSREj39Xsy39-1izOacUoUg6CXfv1AHccCReChAAst2vWtG3UViKowF3exRJ5ZNF3PqcXEuvRllJBcCQo79MbJ5aIizg/s320/Moiseenko.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>The film director of Songs of Abdul, Anna Moiseenko</b></i></td></tr>
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2) Elena Demidova's <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Last Man</i> is a continuation of her film <b><i>Lyosha</i></b> on the forest fires of 2010. Demidova gives us both a superb choice of documentary hero and a highly reflexive film on the relationship between the documentarian and their documentary protagonist as well as something of a mini encyclopaedia of Russian village life. Along with the footage from the earlier film in the first part of the documentary and the extraordinary monologue of the main protagonist, in the second part it details the growing dynamic between documentarian and documentary hero ending with a phone call from Lyosha's wife demanding an end to all contact with the film's protagonist. In this way Demidova reveals the dynamics of author and subject underlying (but usually hidden from) a documentary film and in so doing brilliantly unmasks the narrative stability of a documentary portrait by foregrounding the relationship between film director and protagonist. In spite of its length (two hours) the film nevertheless finds a way of keeping the audience hooked by its portraits not just of the protagonist but also of his neighbours. There is surely enough 'cinema' to keep the audience going.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd-wrEO7hc5CwkT3lLjftF8_AB4KJdYVp7jSjLYO8V3qtMng7tb-uId7IvRudD36IoqvMpcFNUvF93LLp826CnMfP0FP_jW7rZKD9BKqh_hyphenhyphenbFSurZ4dN5VDvUAgWQXWZu6Gk9bjdBck/s1600/Tftyana+danilyants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd-wrEO7hc5CwkT3lLjftF8_AB4KJdYVp7jSjLYO8V3qtMng7tb-uId7IvRudD36IoqvMpcFNUvF93LLp826CnMfP0FP_jW7rZKD9BKqh_hyphenhyphenbFSurZ4dN5VDvUAgWQXWZu6Gk9bjdBck/s320/Tftyana+danilyants.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>The film director of Six Musicians as a backdrop to a city, Tatyana Danilyants</i></b></td></tr>
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Tatyana Danilyants' <i style="font-weight: bold;">Six Musicians as a backdrop to a city</i> is a very different film to many of those shown at Art Doc Fest. Like many of Danilyants' films this is a city film. Not this time a film of Venice but one of Yerevan. A city film linked inextricably to its music and, in particular,to six musicians who the director felt represented a special bond to the city. Allowing them to choose the locations to be filmed, Danilyants encouraged the musicians to reveal to the viewer their city while she reveals the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the music of Yerevan. One can not help noting that Danilyants is the only documentary filmmaker in Russia making a 'city film' of any kind and this makes her films strangely unique and, in the context of Russian documentary, extremely innovative. Of course her films are not centred on Russian cities but of very particular cities on the periphery of the Slavic world but, all the same, this foregrounding of cities, this relating documentary heroes to their location and transforming the city into the ultimate protagonist of the film makes for a cinema that is almost untimely and radically opposed to much of Russian-language documentary. Indeed after watching a documentary by Danilyants one starts to wonder why the city <i>as subject </i>is so absent in other Russian-language films. In terms of the film itself the use of archive footage of the tragic late 80s and early 90s of Yerevan as well as one of the musicians (Lilit Pipoyan, the only female musician in the film and, for me, one of the most memorable protagonists) choice of a peripheral location of the city added authenticity to the film.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTcggiNlj2TZPaRXPuAzvNHjCn-xYh4Zny_Hn3gzW_idZ_cikHlp8lPw0er7-T_PrW54DXdIHmvrVncHOXHkri88x_1-fKS6HsPeA0QTcGuN41YNTnHv2zqNfmCU8JAtWGx4dDk1mv24M/s1600/six+musicians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTcggiNlj2TZPaRXPuAzvNHjCn-xYh4Zny_Hn3gzW_idZ_cikHlp8lPw0er7-T_PrW54DXdIHmvrVncHOXHkri88x_1-fKS6HsPeA0QTcGuN41YNTnHv2zqNfmCU8JAtWGx4dDk1mv24M/s320/six+musicians.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i> A still from Tatyana Danilyants' film Six musicians as a backdrop to a city</i></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmRYazWZou5PyzjCyX9GXo05P8R7XCQDEaupntp2cIUt2a_JbaQcwy-VOu9VEJIRPkbhFsoOc-7sQmRV0Yqj3iHLKJEG-SA4p9TTKjPxhufJEPzCzlfm1k31gdNJhxtbU3YJpL0WSm04/s1600/Daria+Khrenova.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmRYazWZou5PyzjCyX9GXo05P8R7XCQDEaupntp2cIUt2a_JbaQcwy-VOu9VEJIRPkbhFsoOc-7sQmRV0Yqj3iHLKJEG-SA4p9TTKjPxhufJEPzCzlfm1k31gdNJhxtbU3YJpL0WSm04/s320/Daria+Khrenova.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>The film director of Naked Life, Daria Khrenova</i></b></td></tr>
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Daria Khrenova's film <b style="font-style: italic;">Naked Life </b>about the actionist artist Pyotr Pavlensky was one of two films directly about him in the festival. In fact it was Irene Langemann's <i><b>Pavlensky- Man and Power</b></i> which was to open the festival.While Langemann's film may have been, <a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2016/festival-reports/dok-leipzig-2016/">in the words of film critic Carmen Grey "a compact primer for those who have not followed ..the acts of one of Russia's most effective champions of dissent-through-spectacle"</a> , Khrenova's film can be said to be much more of a primary document than Langemann's just <a href="http://www.explodingappendix.co.uk/2014/07/13/a-hymn-to-revolt-and-a-hymn-to-martyrdom-two-films-on-pussy-riot/">as the film by Gogol's Wives on Pussy Riot was a primary document in comparison to the film by Lerner and Pozdorovkin: in retrospect very much a secondary document</a>. There is a proviso that while Gogol's Wives began as underground activist filmmakers, Daria Khrenova had already a certain established reputation as a documentary filmmaker. Maybe the film that comes closest to Khrenova's was Andrey Gryazyev's film <b style="font-style: italic;">Tomorrow</b> on two members of the <i style="font-weight: bold;">Voina </i>collective. Khrenova manages a similarly intimate portrait of the artist and his partner but also contrives to add some extra lyrical coverage that adds certain poetical touches such as the march of elderly Stalinists near Red Square along with a group of police officers watching Pavlensky's actions on a screen and commenting on them (often expressing ideas about the action that art critics would find difficult to formulate). Another key element in the film is the story of the state investigator who turned from Pavlensky's prosecutor to a staunch defender (transforming his own life in the process). All in all it deserves to be the Pavlensky film on international film circuits precisely because of the raw proximity that Khrenova achieves with the artist.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11bg6dhrY_1eg_LOEMjS5PxEsUFfDa6WQSvgK05IbrAue3x8Sj6_PGJBYZvbOJhY1uN-hmkuTSf2GmTq2KhhSXQv7bpSFtcnYu2LspYYTU6gvgey647uYI7zwwjQDY6Xo-7tsXe5JNpc/s1600/Golaya+Zhizn.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11bg6dhrY_1eg_LOEMjS5PxEsUFfDa6WQSvgK05IbrAue3x8Sj6_PGJBYZvbOJhY1uN-hmkuTSf2GmTq2KhhSXQv7bpSFtcnYu2LspYYTU6gvgey647uYI7zwwjQDY6Xo-7tsXe5JNpc/s320/Golaya+Zhizn.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>A still from Daria Khrenova's Naked Life in which police officers watch Pavlensky's art actions on a screen</i></b></td></tr>
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There are a whole host of other films deserving of accounts. And there are films which will surely receive (and have already achieved) much international coverage. To be brief about Sergei Loznitsa's <b style="font-style: italic;">Austerlitz</b> is a rather impossible task and in many ways it was the film that for me most stood out during the festival. Again the film <b><i>Close Relations</i></b> by Mansky on Ukraine also deserves a rather lengthy piece. Thankfully Carmen Gray in an <a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2016/festival-reports/dok-leipzig-2016/">article mentioned earlier</a> has written about these films at some length for <i>Senses of Cinema. </i>Many films deserve to be written about at a later time. Alina Rudnitskaya's <i style="font-weight: bold;">Catastrophe</i> is a film rather unlike some of her previous odysseys through the institutions but developing them into a very poignant piece on one of the worst post-Soviet catastrophic incidents at a hydro-electric station. And then there are the films which time constraints meant sacrificing and desperately hoping for another chance to watch them. <i> </i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>A frame from Alina Rudnitskaya's film Catastrophe on a disaster at a hydro-electric power station and its aftermath</i></b></td></tr>
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<i><br /></i>giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-62590004697372694722016-12-07T14:14:00.003-08:002016-12-07T14:19:26.706-08:00In Search of Lost Reality (2) Film Programmes at Art Doc FestThe broad variety of films at Art Doc Fest is one of its other highlights and it is worthwhile making some remarks on the different programmes. The <b>competition programme</b> this year has a variety of films about Ukraine (four in total), two on psychiatric institutions, one on the Russian road (entitled The Road)- a documentary which has won certain plaudits from those who have see this film by Dmitry Kalashnikov. An Israeli director, Vlady Antonevich, has made a documentary thriller on the Neo-nazi undeground in Russia responsible for a number of heinous murders of migrants. The lack of interest from the police in uncovering these murders opens up the question of some kind of collusion between police and Neo-Nazis. Of those films which are of particular interest were Sergei Loznitsa's <b>Austerlitz </b> and Daria Khrenova's <b>A Naked Life </b>as well as <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2016/12/in-search-of-lost-reality-1-on-10th.html">Konstantin Selin's film</a> <b>Chronicles of a Revolution That Didn't Take Place </b>written about in the previous post.<br />
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There were another eight programmes and a number of films shown as 'Special Showings' at the festival. The <b>Sreda programme</b> included some very significant films by directors who have already proven their worth and significance in the Russian documentary film world. Sergei Kachkin's <b>Perm 36: Reflexion</b> was premiered in Perm and had its Moscow premiere days before the start of Art Doc Fest. Each showing has attracted a large number of well-known spectators and high levels of intellectual debate about what could be called 'the moral question' in history. I've <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2016/09/against-repression-nostalgia-interview.html">interviewed Sergei on his career and this latest film for this blog </a> and it is surely the case that this film deserves an international run. Alina Rudnitskaya's <b>Catastrophe </b>on the 2009 hydro-electric power station disaster and its aftermath is yet another indication that Rudnitskaya is one of the most interesting film directors in Russia today. Her documentary tours of government agencies in one form or another (from <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/3188/Alina-Rudnitskaya-Blood-documentary">blood banks</a> to abortion clinics) served her well for this look at one of the most tragic incidents in recent years in a power station. <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/12/art-doc-fest-2013-look-at-films-awarded.html">Rudnitskaya justifiably was awarded the Grand Prix Award three years ago at Art Doc Fest.</a> Ivan Tverdovsky is another significant figure in the documentary sphere and has offered a film entitled <b>Weather Forecast </b>about an old vessel which serves weather stations in the Russian artic and which often is their only link with the outside world.<br />
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The <b>Psy.Doc programme </b>is another unique conception for a documentary film festivals. It consists in a film screening with an after-film discussion with a psychologist who will give their expert opinion of the film and the psychology involved in the film. An interesting idea with some very fascinating films. One of which was a portrait of one of the demonstrators on August 25th 1968 Natalia Gorbanevskaya who in spite of her willingness to be at the centre of the dissident movement and pay the price of repression often stated "I am no heroine, I am an ordinary person". This film has its Russian premiere at the festival.<br />
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The programme <b>After the Union </b>includes films created in former Soviet Republics while the <b>War and Peace </b>programme is dedicated to the situation in Ukraine. In these two programme Tatyana Danilyants <b>Six Musicians in the Backdrop of a City </b>and Vitaly Mansky <b>Kin</b> will be discussed in separate posts. A separate programme to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Art Doc Fest with winners from previous years and the <b>A to Z programme</b> of last year's laureates of Russian documentary festivals and awards allows one to rewatch those films that one may have missed over the past year. giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-35165956708537448612016-12-07T01:37:00.000-08:002016-12-07T01:37:26.716-08:00In Search of Lost Reality (1): On the 10th Anniversary of Art Doc Fest and Konstantin Selin's new departure in Russian Documentary.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This year Art Doc Fest is celebrating its tenth anniversary and since December 1st this year's edition of the festival has been taking place at the Oktyabr Cinema in Moscow's central Novy Arbat street. (The festival now takes place also in St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg as well as Riga). Its expansion to other cities and countries marks something of a success, especially given the fact that after a frontal conflict with Russia's Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, has left the festival without even the meagre government funding it once had. So while the festival has its own 'patriarch' in Vitaly Mansky, it can boast of a total independence from the government (as well as permitting itself to exhibit a certain antagonism). It has become festival which doesn't hesitate to announce its conflictual relationship to the cultural bureaucrats in charge and even vaunts its oppositional reputation. Nonetheless, at the same time the festival nevertheless ensures that the programme is a very broad one. This year was no exception.<br />
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First there are always the major films which expect to attract the larger crowds - in recent years they've included films about corruption in the Sochi Winter Olympics and Khodorkovsky. This year, too a film on, Khodorkovsky was once again in the programme and two about the murdered opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov (one of them was already shown at last year's festival). Another major film event was the opening film on the actionist artist Petr Pavlensky (once again two films on this artist have been shown at the festival- see a subsequent post for my view of the Russian film on Pavlensky by Daria Khrenova which surely deserves international recognition, even more so than the German film which opened the festival). Some of these directly political films always ensure Art Doc Fest's reputation for its determination to show films anathema to the authorities, as well as full cinema halls and heated political discussions.And yet not always do these films turn out to be the most radical films either in terms of their cinematic value or even their political stance. Gentelev's <i>Putin's Games </i>shown three years<i> </i>ago will probably not go down in film history whereas other films shown to smaller audiences have much more likelihood in doing so. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A shot from Chronicles of a Revolution That Didn't Take Place</i></td></tr>
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In this sense arguably the most important film at this year's festival was a less conventional 'political' film precisely in the fact that it has shed light not on big politics (Putin, corruption, the martyrs of the liberal opposition) reported throughout the international media but about an extraordinary moment of popular resistance that went almost unreported in both the Russian and the international media. The story of long-distance truck drivers who managed, against the resistance of the authorities (with considerable police harassment and obstruction) and a news black out from all the main TV channels to win a strike and set up an authentically independent trade union in its aftermath will ensure Konstantin Selin's film <i>Chronicle of a Revolution That Didn't Happen</i> narrates Reality rather than fixing a political position. Selin's film is powerful in showing not so much a collective portrayal of struggle but the reformation (or rather transformation) of political consciousness in the process of a struggle. Following two protagonists but not extricating them from the collective moment, this film manages to merge the individual and collective story in a new way for Russian documentary. By balancing the individual and the collective stories and focusing on the transformation of consciousness of the film's protagonists, Konstantin Selin's <i>Chronicle</i> has achieved something relatively rare in Russian documentary and surely in this way his film will earn its place not just as an exploration of an unacknowledged story hidden from view (an example of Lost Reality restored) but also as an attempt to force through into a new cinematic territory merging the best of Russian documentary (its observational focus on the individual protagonist in his environment) with the addition of locating this in social and political reality and also picturing the protagonists dynamic transformation of consciousness as to this reality. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The film director Konstantin Selin</i></td></tr>
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<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-87792393474848383342016-11-22T15:02:00.002-08:002016-11-23T11:44:54.035-08:00Pasolini in Russia: the re-emergence of one of Italy's greatest 20th Century poets and visionary filmmakers in the Russian cultural firmament<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Angela Felice and Kirill Medvedev at the opening event of the Pasolini Days in St Petersburg's cinema Rodina</i></td></tr>
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While the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of Pasolini's death last year there was barely no mention of this in Russia. This year, however, it seems that the figure of Pasolini is stalking the Russian consciousness with a whole series of culturally significant moments that may have been little reported but will surely prove to be landmarks when looking back. Landmarks because the links between Pier Paolo Pasolini and Russia have gone back a long way, although had recently become attenuated and landmarks because of the resonance of the figure and thought of Pasolini in contemporary Russia. Equally, Russia and Russian culture was of great importance for Pasolini. As Francesca Tuscano has shown in her work 'Russia in the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini', Pasolini's work is replete with Russian influences and allusions(in other essays and a monograph on Pasolini in Russia she shows a reciprocal story), Russia was, indeed, the starting point for one of Pasolini's most important poems 'The Religion of My Time' after his first journey to Moscow in 1957. Pasolini's influence was equally significant in bringing to the attention of Italian scholars the Soviet Formalists from Shklovsky to Jacobson as well as Bakhtin. His posthumously published novel <i>Petrolio </i>is full of Russian allusions and references. Both Dostoyevsky and Shklovsky are cited often. Many Russians too have discovered that Pasolini (both the poet and the filmmaker and to a lesser extent his other roles) were central to their world.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of Francesca Tuscano's works on the reciprocal influences of Pasolini and Russia</i></td></tr>
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Of course there have been ebbs and flows in the interest that Russians have shown in the work of Pasolini. Pasolini may be the most 'Russian' of Italian figures but he is also one that encounters a certain resistance. From Soviet times Pasolini can be seen as just as 'uncomfortable' (<i>scomodo</i>) a figure in Russia as he was in Italy. Such that the Soviet press simply ignored his assassination (no contemporary press reports of this central event in modern Italian history were published in the Soviet press). His support for Sinyavsky and Daniel meant that from the late sixties he was very much a figure either ignored or attacked in the Soviet press. Perestroika 'rescued' him with a number of retrospectives (even though causing a certain scandal even then), though the ground had been prepared with a number of translations of poetry in the early eighties. A major publication of his written works also took place in 2000 with the publication of a book entitled <i>Teorema</i> which, however, was not centred on his eponymous film and novel but brought a large collection of material to the attention of the Russian reading public.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Kirill Medvedev, poet, publisher (Free Marxist Press) and the translator of Pasolini's Friulan poems</i></td></tr>
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2016 has proved to be one of those years in which Pasolini has returned into the Russian cultural consciousness. Surely in hindsight one of the central moments of this recuperation of the legacy of Pasolini will prove to be the very first full translation into Russia of Pasolini's Friulan poems including both major cycles of his dialect poetry - <i>La meglio gioventu </i>as well as <i>La Nuova Gioventu.</i> Kirill Medvedev (a poet who has in the past worked on and published a number of translations by Pasolini) has rendered an immense service and overcome many truly colossal hurdles in rendering these essential poems for an understanding of the genesis and final years of the poet Pasolini. An historic moment given that Russian is the very first foreign language into which these poems have been fully translated (and so undoubtedly a landmark moment globally as well as in Russia itself). For it is in Pasolini's Friulan poems where we find the beginning and the end of Pasolini's poetry. The re-writings of the early poems undertaken in the early 70s encapsulate those two moments of the appearance of luminosity (born as one of Pasolini's own poems in Italian puts it through the experience of the Resistance) and the dying of the light in his visionary nightmare of the consumerist hell of a future fascism which Pasolini depicted in his last film <i>Salo' or the 120 Days of Sodom</i>. A hell which seems so very contemporary in these days of Trump, Brexit and the nativist right stretching from France through Austria to Hungary in line with a sadistic 'conservative revolution' all too visible in Russia itself. The emergence of a poet in Friulan (and in a version of Friulan hitherto considered nonliterary) in the early 1940s and the abjuration of this hope incarnated within his poetry in the early 1970s are embodied in a Russian text which demonstrates this dialectic to be of extreme contemporary relevance in Russia itself. The book includes a range of commentaries on this poetry from those of Angela Felice, the Director of the Casarsa Pasolini Centre (who came to introduce the book) to Michael Hardt (well-known for his collaborative works with Toni Negri). Moreover, the book includes an interesting experiment carried out by the leftist Ukrainian activist based in Odessa, Denis Pilash, who translates a number of Pasolini's poems into his native Rusyn language (a language as marginalized from the literary process in this part of the world as that of Friulan would have been in the early 1940s). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4BQNJaXgspxp5hFi2L-3Rsu7nV2d6yWxJb-EhFWDokyxT7SPI9bT6mumkweAzcIUl-M86FCDafLfxJgMTsJMKHfT-wGuWbQk8iY4H591SlldBGLKUOL1iC1-G8f1senQS1TjVxioj2Qs/s1600/331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4BQNJaXgspxp5hFi2L-3Rsu7nV2d6yWxJb-EhFWDokyxT7SPI9bT6mumkweAzcIUl-M86FCDafLfxJgMTsJMKHfT-wGuWbQk8iY4H591SlldBGLKUOL1iC1-G8f1senQS1TjVxioj2Qs/s320/331.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kirill Medvedev's volume of translations of the full 1974 edition of Pasolini's Friulan poems <i>La Nuova Gioventu</i>, cover by Nikolai Oleynikov.</td></tr>
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The book presentations last weekend were accompanied by a further event. The showing in St Petersburg and Moscow of a film which Pasolini associated himself with in the early 1970s. This film was <i>December 12th. </i>While Pasolini did not shoot the whole of the film but collaborated with the left extra-parliamentary group <i>Lotta Continua</i> in producing the film and indeed he filmed some significant moments of the film-indeed deeply lyrical moments of this very political film. The film showing (chosen by the film review Seance from a list of possible Pasolini films submitted to them by Kirill Medvedev) caused some consternation on the part of some of the Italian parties organising the weekend and in part led to the withdrawal of support from the Moscow wing of the Italian Institute of Culture for the Pasolini weekend (though the St Petersburg IIC did rightly support the initiative). While <i>December 12th</i> may remain an uncomfortable film for Italians to watch (reminding them of a decade full of real traumas but also hopes and clashes long since buried by the anemic abulia of the period from the 1980s to the reign of Berlusconi and beyond), it remains a historical document of supreme importance. Concentrating on the events surrounding the bombing of a Milanese bank (and attempting to reconstruct the truth of these events) and on the quasi revolutionary atmosphere in the country in the early 1970s, the film brings out uncomfortable memories to Italians who lived through the period. Yet the traumas of the Italian 1970s has already been the subject matter of a previous Italian Cultural Institute event from another angle (with its own explicit perspective on the decade). The film <i><a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2014/02/sfiorando-il-muro-russian-reading-of.html">Sfiorando il Muro</a> </i>was given two separate<i> </i>showings<i> </i>in Moscow a few years back. A film which was both a deeply personal story (the director was the daughter of a neo-fascist activist shot dead by the Red Brigades in the early 70s) but not shying away from a political reading of the 1970s (in the city of Padua). Even if it did attempt to give voice to different participants, it firmly stamps its own depiction of the decade on the viewers mind.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/44/0a/3f/440a3f05939bc5e66b16b2efbe6ab883.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/44/0a/3f/440a3f05939bc5e66b16b2efbe6ab883.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The 12th December- shown at two cinemas in Moscow and St Petersburg- this weekend to accompany the publication of Pasolini's Friulan poems.</i></td></tr>
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Yet the Pasolini contribution this year has not been limited to this. The arrival of David Grieco at the Moscow International Film Festival with his film <i>La Macchinazione</i> on the murder of Pasolini, a film responding to Abel Ferrara's film on the same subject but from a very different and more political angle was another significant moment. Its repeat showing at a more recent festival devoted to Italian cinema in Moscow has given people in Moscow a second chance to view this film.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUvms2KalG_Rt5sgq7oUdChwIBj1ESBuVQAwBUILpWcHZ5z2np0OQrvx4GPk-M6qAloFQZTX9lbFODxF9GzosktUjOJ_74Yzkea-KNV5S9g1LAwn6XdfflK2lsT091B1oZIEeyD8JdYc/s1600/Alexandra+Petrova.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUvms2KalG_Rt5sgq7oUdChwIBj1ESBuVQAwBUILpWcHZ5z2np0OQrvx4GPk-M6qAloFQZTX9lbFODxF9GzosktUjOJ_74Yzkea-KNV5S9g1LAwn6XdfflK2lsT091B1oZIEeyD8JdYc/s320/Alexandra+Petrova.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Alexandra Petrova, author of a Russian novel on Rome where the spirit of Pier Paolo Pasolini is very much present.</i></td></tr>
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The presence of Pasolini is also a significant one in a recently published novel, <i>Appendix</i> (Аппендикс) by Alexandra Petrova, a writer who has spent almost twenty years in Italy. The novel in Russian has received a lot of critical attention and was the occasion for an <a href="http://www.svoboda.org/a/28038621.html">interesting discussion led by the poet Elena Fanailova</a> for Radio Svoboda. The novel is now in the running for two prestigious literary prizes in Russia. Pasolini is present both implicitly and explicitly in the novel- for example in the form of direct citations (for example a chapter is introduced with translated lines from his poem <i>Il canto Popolare</i>) as well as toponomical links. The chapter 'Roman Monsters' which the citation heads discusses the Rebibbia of Pasolini and the Rebibbia of this novels protagonist. In fact the novels of Pasolini even where he is not cited are surely a literary antecedent of this novel (portraying a Rome not of the <i>beau monde</i> or dolce vita but of the periphery, just as Pasolini had done so provoking such scandal six decades ago). It is a novel of immigrants, trans, and marginalised radicals moving back and forth from Rome, to Saint Petersburg (or Leningrad), Brazil and Africa just as it heads back and forth in historical time - and often to those 1970s, that last season of political revolt highlighted in the film 12th December, a season with which one of the novel's protagonists is closely associated with.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK5KW46zTLJhKrNk9LYo_9rLprpLlDCqiLd3XCRkW_F9ebE2oib0-KOpGBZQHmKZqNHwOXzlIrmkIokK1ZL-vpVQz8m9nJ0BJAYVcc0iL6QBB3fsCqmMoHpfj2BJMcpHD8kDm4BqGWJ3M/s1600/appendix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK5KW46zTLJhKrNk9LYo_9rLprpLlDCqiLd3XCRkW_F9ebE2oib0-KOpGBZQHmKZqNHwOXzlIrmkIokK1ZL-vpVQz8m9nJ0BJAYVcc0iL6QBB3fsCqmMoHpfj2BJMcpHD8kDm4BqGWJ3M/s320/appendix.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">The cover of Alexandra Petrova's novel Appendix</i></td></tr>
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Pasolini's presence in Russian culture seems likely to grow stronger than ever. The Russian translation of a large section of Pasolini's <i>Petrolio</i> was published a year ago, as was the book by Emanuele Trevi (Qualcosa di Scritto) trying to dissect the unfinished work of Pasolini and to give (an admittedly none too flattering) portrait of Pasolini's close friend, Laura Betti, who would keep alive the memory of Pasolini in unorthodox ways. The Laura Betti who also had come to Moscow to present a Pasolini retrospective a number of years ago (a trip, alas, not mentioned in Trevi's book).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://godliteratury.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Trevi-575x363.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://godliteratury.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Trevi-575x363.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Emanuele Trevi speaking through the translator of his novel in Moscow at the presentation of his book in Moscow</i></td></tr>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-36587406766908462172016-09-01T05:16:00.001-07:002016-09-01T05:21:47.532-07:00Against Repression Nostalgia: An Interview with Sergei Kachkin on his film-making life and his new film 'Perm 36:Reflexion'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxzf1CmfV1_18sD3666LBnvSb-GUhOL5QE6TiZKT8egThTU3XGYj1BtZAEijYDGMH5SaN6m9xRGbhMbdzwVyQsRtzcuGFPeLSXPTdi_5oWuNvQUV7XEYcnptt13eom6Gv54gy1xgmrVQ/s1600/DOKer+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxzf1CmfV1_18sD3666LBnvSb-GUhOL5QE6TiZKT8egThTU3XGYj1BtZAEijYDGMH5SaN6m9xRGbhMbdzwVyQsRtzcuGFPeLSXPTdi_5oWuNvQUV7XEYcnptt13eom6Gv54gy1xgmrVQ/s320/DOKer+2016.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergei Kachkin at a DOKer film evening</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sergei Kachkin is a documentary filmmaker whose name,
in spite of only one major full-length film to his name, deserves to be noted.
While his first film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2023633/combined"><i>On the Way Home</i> </a>is an
intimate, family portrait of a long-distance lorry driver and his wife- about
“a journey, a relationship and a returning home” as it states on the IDFA
site (<a href="https://www.idfa.nl/industry/tags/project.aspx?id=cd590e66-1c1f-436b-8191-c19195e0dd77">https://www.idfa.nl/industry/tags/project.aspx?id=cd590e66-1c1f-436b-8191-c19195e0dd77</a>).
As an article in Calvert Journal on this film further notes “great
documentaries have the ability to evoke the extraordinary in the ordinary” (<a href="http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/2260">http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/2260</a>)
and indeed this is the path that Kachkin seems to be pursuing. A disdain for
any cheap drama and a willingness to work within the tradition of classical
documentary, Kachkin nonetheless manages to illuminate the lives of those who
rarely make it to the screen. In his new film he is about to stake out another
new territory in his film on the labour camps in late Soviet period. However,
instead of a simple historical detailing of the nature of these camps, Sergei
Kachkin remains very firmly wedded in contemporary Russia. By detailing the
destiny of one of these camps – Perm 36 – which was turned into a museum, he
tries to depict or reflect the state of contemporary Russian society. Present
and past comment on each other through the recollections of three former
political prisoners (one a worker, and two from the intellighentsia – one an
activist, the other a literary figure) as well as the situation surrounding the
museum with its guides and directors slowly being replaced and being undermined
from above and from below. An annual civic forum which regularly took place in
adjacent grounds to the Museum is also filmed with a view to presenting a
society at times supportive, at times hostile to the project of an honest
appraisal of Russia’s complex history. <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/54590351">Perm-36.Reflexion</a></i> is a necessary film- a film that evokes a much- needed debate, a
very contemporary debate on history, memory and the dangers of toying with what
can only be called ‘repression nostalgia’. As the translator of the English
subtitles I have watched the film (though, not in its final stage with the
sound correction of Nelly Ivanova who, as Sergei mentioned to me, managed to
breathe life into this film). It is expected to make the festival circuits in
the next few months, so I decided to talk to Sergei about the film and how the
film has found a not too welcoming environment from certain Russian film
environments and festivals hesitant of upsetting their paymasters.</span></span><br />
<i style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"> </span></i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sergei,
please tell me something about your life and life as a film maker. How did you
get into making documentaries, what were your inspirations (or inspirational
figures) that made you choose film as a profession?</span></b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFy2cjXi5Md_Jn5H2dEML9QTzY_zi5F9lu_MixBxUIXWv8BG5mO5zj34CNLITij03d_W6l0tUk_iG0NcMouc2CID_rU_L9I3nFEWFgMNrGu-n_9Oo6B104bPTSQsUWSttJ0FbguTE0gI/s1600/Godfrey+Reggio+%2526+Me_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFy2cjXi5Md_Jn5H2dEML9QTzY_zi5F9lu_MixBxUIXWv8BG5mO5zj34CNLITij03d_W6l0tUk_iG0NcMouc2CID_rU_L9I3nFEWFgMNrGu-n_9Oo6B104bPTSQsUWSttJ0FbguTE0gI/s320/Godfrey+Reggio+%2526+Me_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergei Kachkin with Godfrey Reggio</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I watched a lot of
films in my childhood. Both my school and the cinema were a five minute walk
from my home. And quite often I would run home from school to leave my satchel
and then go straight to the cinema. Sometimes it would be the case that I would
watch the same film two or three times thanks to the fact that then tickets
were very cheap. When I was nine years old, I was very much into photography as
well by my older brother. My photographs taken as a young child and the
negatives are still in the attic of the family home. I’m amazed at my mother’s
patience which she showed to me and my brother- we used up an endless amount of
photographic film, photographic paper,photographic developer and fixing
solutions and when we hung the photos up to dry they were situated all over the
house. </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> In high school I
had a side job as a projectionist at the school where I studied. I was the only
one who was trusted with this work. I really loved threading the film through
the projection camera, cutting and gluing it with acetone on that special bench.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> To tell the truth I gave up
photography after I left school and only returned to it when digital cameras
appeared. But I never left cinema even when I was studying engineering at a
polytechnic. In those years I would mainly watch Hollywood films – sometimes
two or three films a day. And then one day my sister, Marina, gave me a book –
the memoirs of Andrey Konchalovsky who had just returned back to Russia from
Hollywood. I read it in a single reading and discovered new names which I
hadn’t heard of before: Fellini, De Sica, Antonioni, Truffaut, Bresson,
Bergman, Forman, Kurosawa and even Tarkovsky. Then I started to read their
biographies or memoirs, the scripts or interviews of practically all of them
and, of course, watched their films. At some point I understood that I, too,
wished to make films. And so I began to think about studying in a film school
as a director of feature films, but at about the same time I made a new
discovery- that of documentary cinema.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">That happened thanks to a film club in which documentaries were shown.
The following films were like a complete revelation for me: </span><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;">Koyaanisqatsi</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">by Godfrey Reggio, The Belovs by Viktor
Kossakovsky and The Lonely Voice of Man by Alexander Sokurov ( although this
may not be a documentary as such it is one of those great films I saw at the
film club) . Later I was to meet all three directors. Of course I watched many
films at the</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">”Flahertiana”
International Festival of Documentary Film which takes place in the city of
Perm. But the decisive moment for me was my trip to a Hungarian Film Festival
“Mediawave”, whose jury chairman that year was Jos Stelling. I flung myself
into the world of film festivals and for some reason understood there that the
only thing that I wished to do was to shoot films. And after just six months my
dream came true: with my friend Lyosha Romanov I shot the first documentary
film in my life “The River Flowing into the Sky”. After that I could think of
nothing else and so at film school I studied to become a documentary filmmaker. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57bF7y0fKGU5xlEiJaKcyEC_MK20uyXV-WMqcZCHwGPpyKOEGQzSZMs9hXQs_8MOT0d9VJbAasfmgaML_Yb4sdaYyPAM531cJtMhhGIUzw-qPYv3hsSk2NQC4H7q3YwK3sOTDgf4sEFI/s1600/Sokurov_Me.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57bF7y0fKGU5xlEiJaKcyEC_MK20uyXV-WMqcZCHwGPpyKOEGQzSZMs9hXQs_8MOT0d9VJbAasfmgaML_Yb4sdaYyPAM531cJtMhhGIUzw-qPYv3hsSk2NQC4H7q3YwK3sOTDgf4sEFI/s320/Sokurov_Me.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergei Kackin with renowned director Alexander Sokurov</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Moreover, as well as filming, I know that you have been very busy in many other film-related projects often meaning that sometimes your film-making takes a back seat. You have worked on a fabulous documentary project called DOKer with a number of other very fine documentary filmmakers such as Irina Shatalova and Nastia Tarasova and have all devoted a great amount of time working on bringing documentary to a wide audience (as was shown at this year’s DOKer film festival which managed to fill the largest screen</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">in Moscow this year) and had also been working with Moscow Business Square until last year attempting to attract many people in the global film world to Russia. What kind of insights have these two experiences given you into the Russian film world?</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 115%;">How well-informed you are! I met Irina and Nastya five years ago when I
came to live in Moscow. Their idea to show documentary cinema d’auteur in a
film club entitled “The DOKer Project” was something I was very much in tune with.
And so I offered them my help and for several years we have become close
friends and colleagues. The film club in its five years of existence has turned
into an International Festival of Documentary Cinema (DOKer). This year it has
had its second edition. And we are so proud of the fact that it has such a
strong competition programme! We watch all the films submitted to the festival
and are very pleased with the fact that so many films are of such high quality.
It’s such a shame that we are unable to include all the films we like in the
programme of the festival…It is also very important that the competition
showings of this year’s festival were shown at the October Film Theatre- this
is the major Moscow film theatre and one could say the main film theatre in the
whole country. This is where, for example, the annual Moscow Film festival
takes place.</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">Apart from this in the course of five years I was actively involved in
the holding of the International Co-Production Forum Moscow Business </span></i></span><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">Square; I was responsible for the </span></i><i>organisation and
selection of film projects. MBS is a business platform assigned with the task
of developing joint film production and it took place during the Moscow Film
Festival. This was a colossal experience for me because the spectre of
professional contacts significantly increased.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #17365d; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></i></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtNHyV7IcnJvNI-4zB5ptJxGHHIH4qItCCxh2d-C7tpZUNsAR0HBO4VLk1qwOPhJbUz7kAWAuh0DnbrOuYe7td1YB05uHCDTh7sVb9Dio76978AbxDTxwns1rk3FXJW-c_lVGfD-JyTI/s1600/preview_mbs2_00113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtNHyV7IcnJvNI-4zB5ptJxGHHIH4qItCCxh2d-C7tpZUNsAR0HBO4VLk1qwOPhJbUz7kAWAuh0DnbrOuYe7td1YB05uHCDTh7sVb9Dio76978AbxDTxwns1rk3FXJW-c_lVGfD-JyTI/s320/preview_mbs2_00113.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergei Kachkin hosting a discussion at the Moscow Business Square</td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>3<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sergei,
and now about your new film: What can you tell how the film came about? In
spite of your move to Moscow a few years ago, the city of Perm still seems to
remain at the centre of your film work. What first made you wish to shoot <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950830/combined">a film about Perm-36</a>? Can you talk me through your conception of what you wanted
to say and how this changed during the period of filming and then editing?
(quite a considerable period of time I believe)</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #17365d; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I started my work on
the film before I left Perm where my relatives still live. And then one’s place
of residence rarely has a special significance in terms of where one is going
to shoot. Indeed the contrary is often the case; most documentalists who live
in Moscow shoot their films way beyond its limits. Therefore the fact that my
story takes place in Perm which I know very well is very much to my advantage.</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The wish to touch upon
such a difficult subject matter arose gradually after several visits to the
Perm-36 Museum and in my film I talk about this issue off-screen. The first
time I stayed overnight there, I had a rather strange feeling which I hadn’t
sensed before: a sense of hopelessness and a contact with a certain
incommensurably negative energy. But this was in the period of my second or
third visit to the museum which had previously been a prison camp. Then these sensations became dulled… the
human being is such a being that soon gets used to anything. However, I must at
least confess that I never particularly wished to remain there for more than
two or three days. Basically at some moment I suddenly clearly recognized that
this former prison camp is situated at about 80 km from the city where I was
born and grew up in. The thought that during my calm childhood at school people
here were imprisoned simply for keeping forbidden literature during Soviet
times had a very strong effect on me. I wanted to meet in person those former
prisoners so as to understand what kind of people they were. I believe that a
larger quantity of people will watch my film than those few who today visit
Perm- 36. And sometimes visual facts have a stronger effect than a simple text. <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0yUmKu_0QjfuxZY_BVzwOpp47GS_wO18Yl7ESySq-lNUZf7pX6KheMb2cV1BWSonnJaBFjn0i6qY7SajzsjGm4E70LVDzmwlS1pUEPcqPf36EcAROkwxujdVLAjn9G469CJZM9VwsSM/s1600/0_PERM-36_Watch+tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0yUmKu_0QjfuxZY_BVzwOpp47GS_wO18Yl7ESySq-lNUZf7pX6KheMb2cV1BWSonnJaBFjn0i6qY7SajzsjGm4E70LVDzmwlS1pUEPcqPf36EcAROkwxujdVLAjn9G469CJZM9VwsSM/s320/0_PERM-36_Watch+tower.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The watchtower at Perm-36</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">As far as the conception of the film is concerned, it
has also undergone changes during the time I worked on it: it has been five
years in the making. The working title of the film was “Perm-36: A territory of
Freedom” because on the territory of the museum during the summer there took
place an International Civic Form “Pilorama”. The main goal of which was to enlighten
society. This is how its organizers (the founders and directors of the Museum)
formulated their goals. But during the third year </span><span lang="RU" style="line-height: 115%;">of
filming there were some important changes regarding “Pilorama” and the Perm-36
Museum. I won’t say precisely which ones so as to preserve vital moments of the
film’s plot. In any case after these changes I could no longer leave the
previous title of the film unchanged and now the film is called “Perm-36:
Reflexion".</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span lang="RU" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-H5JX1YQ4_VTPEK_pr6uC8dCzUK_AgdeyptkzDwk3F2nCxDAY-BTUMu-0-GxoDjdKR2UZKLkpBVBsIjOBd3X0y1VKiy6G3fGvYEdOKMkVYwDxh-PAdYget5XVOUWxu32LnTkEsK6-6wE/s1600/36-poster-en+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-H5JX1YQ4_VTPEK_pr6uC8dCzUK_AgdeyptkzDwk3F2nCxDAY-BTUMu-0-GxoDjdKR2UZKLkpBVBsIjOBd3X0y1VKiy6G3fGvYEdOKMkVYwDxh-PAdYget5XVOUWxu32LnTkEsK6-6wE/s320/36-poster-en+%25281%2529.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The poster of the film Perm-36: Reflexion</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span lang="RU" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span lang="RU" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">It</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">was</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">fascinating</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">to</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">observe</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">three
such different documentary heroes whose experience of the labour camp and whose
mentalities were very different, and indeed whose social origins were very
different. It’s rather rare to read much about workers who struggled against
the Soviet regime (and yet you admirably didn’t ignore this social category in
your film). Also the attitudes of the two members of the intelligentsia also
couldn’t be more different. A scientist turned dissident and human rights
activist and a character completely unconcerned with politics who simply tried
to build a life outside the Soviet system, that is, tried to ignore its
presence in his life. I found these three portraits an extraordinary portrait
of the camp prisoner. </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="RU"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Can you tell me more? </span></b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWNYIDXW5IgWS09rl0FWL1sHFYdBF-k_Oyb8WQWg20JKgRvm-m0vob-TVejC7BAtIJzoOJrjHaVfH8TX-dQ7R2lwNvjqsfi27uE0xker6NcTBSZiNkbEC5zTXER148vpSCml0v76IlTU4/s1600/Pestov+Viktor_b%2526w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWNYIDXW5IgWS09rl0FWL1sHFYdBF-k_Oyb8WQWg20JKgRvm-m0vob-TVejC7BAtIJzoOJrjHaVfH8TX-dQ7R2lwNvjqsfi27uE0xker6NcTBSZiNkbEC5zTXER148vpSCml0v76IlTU4/s320/Pestov+Viktor_b%2526w.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Viktor Peskov, a former prisoner at Perm 36</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFT28OW2fkmuFSovTi2IyRHJHDo78Bl8UW7ELCw-jCi9Dtkv62eiOlFfxP5mrXvm37qGKUXUUV4Dp1Ff08mERzoo8w9DSR4ZLxSPn0syte-RPzg6A3VYGw3I_3waw9i30oAJFHjckyIoc/s1600/Mikhail+Meylacq_b%2526w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFT28OW2fkmuFSovTi2IyRHJHDo78Bl8UW7ELCw-jCi9Dtkv62eiOlFfxP5mrXvm37qGKUXUUV4Dp1Ff08mERzoo8w9DSR4ZLxSPn0syte-RPzg6A3VYGw3I_3waw9i30oAJFHjckyIoc/s320/Mikhail+Meylacq_b%2526w.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Meylac, a former prisoner at Perm 36</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I originally intended to choose
only one protagonist. Then my conception of the film changed, and I decided to
include two more former dissidents. I expected all three of them to be
representatives of the intelligentsia. But it turned out that one of them
wasn’t able to take part in the filming due to health reasons. As a result the
idea arose to find someone who was significantly different from the other two.
I thought that this would add a certain dimension to the story and would
underline how intolerant the system was to anyone who tried to stand out from
the masses. Indeed as soon as a person stuck his head a little above what was
permitted, the system immediately struck him over the head. I don’t know how
successfully I’ve managed to realise my conception, how far the protagonists
seem to contrast each other, but the fact that they are remarkably different is
a fact (that can’t be denied)/certainly true! The story of each of their
imprisonments are certainly unique </span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>and the reason for that were the completely different conditions they
found themselves in.</i></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHTB5DRPCjOclSq0kMe7eAOd4arih0L3q708umllFE_XZ0ecRuoq_PjCEFwzrt1k52GTT87-PckTMZMPvW1cMFGJ2bE3IFBmz7KuB9iJbFgzomJ782J-TjWYIcBgxy7rnH85mEWOpNdY/s1600/Sergey+Kovalev_b%2526w+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHTB5DRPCjOclSq0kMe7eAOd4arih0L3q708umllFE_XZ0ecRuoq_PjCEFwzrt1k52GTT87-PckTMZMPvW1cMFGJ2bE3IFBmz7KuB9iJbFgzomJ782J-TjWYIcBgxy7rnH85mEWOpNdY/s320/Sergey+Kovalev_b%2526w+%25281%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergei Kovalev, former prisoner at Perm-36</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">As I mentioned in my introduction this is no film about the </b><b style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">past
but an attempt to talk about the past in the present. To see its reflection. To
try and outline what one could call the trace of the past in contemporary
Russian society. And indeed the scenes
of the Civic Forum are extraordinary in themselves. The scenes of people coming
to the camp in NKVD uniforms saying that those who worked in the camp (and
presumably carried out executions in the Stalinist times) have their right to
be heard, and the right to have their stories told, too. Present-day Stalinists
and this strange ‘patriotic’ movement named The Essence of Time (Sut Vremeni)
and their troubling attempts to turn a forum for civic debates into something
very different. Can you tell me something about your own reaction to this? </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgropHePuy4t8Du_edZE2TCIuI4MSe9wVMtJnPJ17_JUUWuH-7AUh5mKKw_4HCExG9Y2FGeZma_sgafDbduY55uTON12i_iIqTaWTJlg8a9V1iwZrgQ2zWSXD8W7USMjLyBINeW-QE4AKE/s1600/1_PERM36_JOSEPH+STALIN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgropHePuy4t8Du_edZE2TCIuI4MSe9wVMtJnPJ17_JUUWuH-7AUh5mKKw_4HCExG9Y2FGeZma_sgafDbduY55uTON12i_iIqTaWTJlg8a9V1iwZrgQ2zWSXD8W7USMjLyBINeW-QE4AKE/s320/1_PERM36_JOSEPH+STALIN.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Communist Party demonstrators with portrait of Stalin as centrepiece.</td></tr>
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</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #17365d; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From my point of view that which
happened at “Pilorama” was in its own way a mirror of contemporary society in
Russia, that is, its reflection. After the fall of the USSR a large section of
the population – and here I’m speaking not about its citizens but about its
population- remained living in the past. For many freedom is like an empty
sound and is understood as ‘do as you like’ and, probably, this is not
necessary for those people who grieve for the loss of the USSR. For me freedom
is responsibility for one’s own behaviour, the possibility of making one’s own
decisions and, yes, in a very trivial sense crossing the border when I wish to
do so.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuuKUEtBtSvlbUbqbedaYg_1LGEYEtrXKsHDdDUzPE0pnQ-Ml6a-p7XcTPhUcgmeM6x1d47mPq_3tvhqngt_VFQmQvSBTUY0_9thjL_dAIAZyOsml58CS7r1vWock6lWutCuWeYgePVo/s1600/5_PERM36_Museum+Bld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuuKUEtBtSvlbUbqbedaYg_1LGEYEtrXKsHDdDUzPE0pnQ-Ml6a-p7XcTPhUcgmeM6x1d47mPq_3tvhqngt_VFQmQvSBTUY0_9thjL_dAIAZyOsml58CS7r1vWock6lWutCuWeYgePVo/s320/5_PERM36_Museum+Bld.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Museum Building with a banner for the 'Pilorama' Civic Forum</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The people in the NKVD uniform,
communists with a portrait of Stalin- these people are all links in a single
chain. For them repression isn’t something monstrous in itself, for them the
main thing is the country, that is, the state apparatus while a person as
individual is nothing, he should serve the good of society. For me it is the
state which should serve the citizen who lives within its bounds. This is a
serious topic of conversation and its roots are deeply rooted in the history of
the Russian state. But I’m afraid that with the kind of people mentioned above
there’s little sense of talking about this because they justify Stalinist
repression with the greatness of the country. For me greatness consists in
people having a voice, and not the pitiable possibility of shouting from a
crowd. The word Stalinism and Stalin himself, for a large part of the Russian
population is not associated with something negative in Russian history, they
don’t see this as a tragic period. From my point of view this is one of the
most acute problems in our society, society is going round in circles instead
of moving ahead and once and for all sorting out this most tragic of
pasts. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is obviously very early days yet regarding
festivals and the festival circuit. But you have mentioned that in Russia
certain festivals where you have submitted your film are not showing this as a
direct result of it being ‘politically inconvenient’. I remember when we first
met (and you told me about this project- this was something like four years
ago) you were very clear that this was ideally a film that was meant to start a
conversation within Russia, an honest conversation about the relation of a
society to its past. So the ideal audience was primarily a Russian one (though
clearly it is a film that merits an international audience too). Tell me something
about your hopes for the future of the film, what issues you hope it will bring
up, what kind of conversation you think necessary in contemporary Russia and
the kind of obstacles that the film is presently facing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I myself am promoting
this film as I am also its producer. Of course, the subject matter of the film
concerns first of all the Russian viewer, but Russia is a large country and
that which takes place in Russia has a significant impact in the whole world.
Therefore I think it is very important that my film should be seen by a large
quantity of viewers, in other countries also. The problem also consists in the
fact that in Russia there are few documentary film festivals. I would say that
there are between three and five such festivals which have some authority
amongst film professionals. And from those three-to-five festivals, two
festivals so far have neglected to select my film. The director of the Perm
Festival told me that he fears the consequences from the Perm Ministry of
Culture (the festival is directly dependent on funding from this body). My film
was also not selected at the festival in St Petersburg and I suspect this was
for similar reasons: its organizers are playing safe, not wishing to show a
film which might cause sharp divisions in society. In this sense we are back in
Soviet realities and a person who is responsible for something simply doesn’t
want to take risks. He thinks like the character in Chekhov's story 'The Man In A Case' “Oh I just hope it won't lead to anything". Let's hope that directors of the other
festivals will show greater willpower. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With festivals outside
of Russia there is a reverse situation. It is probably the case that their
organizers don’t consider the subject matter of my film as topical, that a
viewer is not going to pay for a ticket for this film during the festival. At
any rate that is what two festival representatives told me. But I, nonetheless,
believe that a Programme Director of some festival (with some
authority) who will show some solidarity in relation to the topicality of the
film in the current period. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the present moment
I am sending my film to festivals, and this is, indeed, hard work. Actually it
is a very important matter where the premiere will take place. This will be
decisive for the festival life of the film which, of course, I’m counting on. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD45IIuYIArr0H74LV_zR7NI3Lfjtzm2CdK0c6WgDTrW_mPamofjSOR0ShoHaVvENcrmO0Sf9PuGUvTT9yhNMp3Ywo7a0owH0CIO_FwNwIoCjdXyKKrboesNAlyBh6vESnIj5vzyG5QVg/s1600/Filming+in+PERM-36.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD45IIuYIArr0H74LV_zR7NI3Lfjtzm2CdK0c6WgDTrW_mPamofjSOR0ShoHaVvENcrmO0Sf9PuGUvTT9yhNMp3Ywo7a0owH0CIO_FwNwIoCjdXyKKrboesNAlyBh6vESnIj5vzyG5QVg/s320/Filming+in+PERM-36.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Filming in Perm-36</td></tr>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-73267966819498932512016-06-03T12:03:00.000-07:002016-06-03T12:03:18.295-07:0010 Reasons Why Moscow's DOKer Should Become a Major Venue On the Global Documentary Film Circuit. <div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiv16yK3J06xnJzZNX0FFRB-HV0pHbR_j3smAtAuSk4DyD3yRQvS3TbylA71KJzcwBlWZFDunu2UGYSlPYpEd4AG4zI37mlDdcVq8ZPMCSl0BmvlCwxXKVPekMMLkmwQB4xV7-xkrqKIk/s1600/Opening+film+at+DOKer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiv16yK3J06xnJzZNX0FFRB-HV0pHbR_j3smAtAuSk4DyD3yRQvS3TbylA71KJzcwBlWZFDunu2UGYSlPYpEd4AG4zI37mlDdcVq8ZPMCSl0BmvlCwxXKVPekMMLkmwQB4xV7-xkrqKIk/s320/Opening+film+at+DOKer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Between May 19th and May 24th the DOKer International Documentary Film Festival took place at Moscow's central October cinema. It marked the festival's second edition. This festival (and its accompanying all-year round DOKer Project) must now be seem as <b>the</b> main venue for international documentary film in Russia.</i> <i>Complementing the Russian-centred (ArtDocFest) or the niche documentary festivals (Flahertiana), the fact that Russia has a fully-fledged and independent documentary film festival is one of the most positive moments for film in Russia in 2016. Here are ten reasons why it can become firstly a major feature in Russian festivals and secondly a significant film festival on the global documentary film circuit.</i><br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">This
is a film festival genuinely independent in conception and realization. While festivals
of this kind should be funded, DOKer received not a penny from government
funds. It has arisen purely from the efforts of its own team entirely and has
managed to establish what is surely about to become an important fixture on the
international documentary scene. Having in two years established its own
reputation as the major international documentary film festival in Russia,
developing in what are rather abnormal and schizoid times, a significant
‘mainstream’ festival with the capability of attracting very high quality
documentaries from every continent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">It
is a festival which has already attracted quite a significant public thirsty
for discussion about documentaries and about the ‘real issues’ that they often
provoke. For a new film festival (in its second edition) to fill what is
probably the largest cinema screen in Moscow for its opening and closing
ceremonies is extraordinary. For it to do so for a film festival of <i>documentary </i>film is unprecedented. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhP5XaNpq1AmR67oDfZoWP9A-h_SS_LnCwz8YiuZ9dJmkxyEB4gWtz1ccGA82IU86-FacaFfRzDYYngHnHC8zZOHSrayEdLQPsnbP4GWlmTgtZO8TQ8KFqhs3TewubrSjIXDUk-gmsyjU/s1600/A+full+house+at+the+DOKer+Fest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhP5XaNpq1AmR67oDfZoWP9A-h_SS_LnCwz8YiuZ9dJmkxyEB4gWtz1ccGA82IU86-FacaFfRzDYYngHnHC8zZOHSrayEdLQPsnbP4GWlmTgtZO8TQ8KFqhs3TewubrSjIXDUk-gmsyjU/s320/A+full+house+at+the+DOKer+Fest.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A full house for documentary film at one of Moscow's largest film auditoriums.</i></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">The
Q&A sessions for the public with filmmakers who attend the festival (and
especially the screenings of the parallel DOKer Project) are not just` 10
minutes tacked on at the end but very often occasions for real dialogue.
Filmmakers – both Russian and (during the festival) those coming from abroad -
can expect an audience which is intelligent and searching. An audience comprising
of people who are not passive consumers of films but who, after watching
quality documentary film, can and do become active proselytizers of documentary
cinema. (the groundwork done by the DOKer Project since 2011 has meant that
this community has already been formed).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">The
DOKer team does not suffer from any individual's attempt to mark it off as their festival. That is, DOKer is without the autocratic paternalism of Nikita Mikhalkov and 'his' Moscow International Film Festival nor does it embody the more liberal (but still rather patriarchal) protagonism of Vitaly
Mansky and 'his' ArtDoKFest. It is a genuinely democratic festival in its ethos and organisation. It is also an apolitical festival in the better sense of the word for one that aims to be a mainstream festival (it doesn't censure 'controversial' films nor does it actively attempt to impose any protagonist-like position). It tries in very trying and complex circumstances to build up a 'normal' international festival. During the first DOKer festival last year it was willing to demonstrate its civic courage by publicly showing on its screens a message of solidarity for imprisoned filmmaker, Oleg Sentsov and also screened a film by Alyona Polunina attempting to deal with the Ukraine conflict from the viewpoint of its documentary heroine, a liberal 'intelligent' who decided to travel to Ukraine to meet the 'Maidaners'. The film screening of <i>Varya</i> proved to be its only public screening in Russia given that the Ministry of Culture subsequently decided to refuse it a licence and so effectively censor it. The screening at the festival led on to a
very impassioned Q&A. proving that the festival was capable of becoming a forum for sharp issues brought on by its films.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmYYaj6NUtxmDCt_YYaJHRqCH3Ja8_qMflCHokq5ygKW4R5LxAzlKle0f1Ew9l-x6hqYK6jya8BY_ecFbBuXZ8jgoJd5oI-3-DFoKNKrPVgiPNr3AU8AkAR7foXn9rPFxucs3K7SfN7U/s1600/DOKer+Festival+Directors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmYYaj6NUtxmDCt_YYaJHRqCH3Ja8_qMflCHokq5ygKW4R5LxAzlKle0f1Ew9l-x6hqYK6jya8BY_ecFbBuXZ8jgoJd5oI-3-DFoKNKrPVgiPNr3AU8AkAR7foXn9rPFxucs3K7SfN7U/s320/DOKer+Festival+Directors.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>DOKer's two main programme directors Irina Shatalova and Nastya Tarasova</i><br /></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">For
those who recall the d<a href="http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes-jury-president-jane-campion-calls-out-the-inherent-sexism-in-the-film-industry">ebates over the lack of recognition for women in the filmindustry sparked by Jane Campion’s remarks about the inherent sexism offestivals such as Cannes</a></span><span lang="EN-US">,
DOKer is a project and a festival whose main directors women and permanent staff (in fact Russian documentary film is very much a sphere in
which women predominate). DOKer just happens to be this way, that is, it is not
a woman’s film festival but a festival in which gender equality is finally more of a reality than just a goal. Another reason why it sets itself apart from other festivals
in Russia like those mentioned above. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">6)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">While
the festival was run and organized by volunteers (given funding realities) this was a highly professional
festival. To give just one example not usually mentioned when talking about
film festivals the 36 films that required translation were done both
voluntarily but also showed an exceptional level of professionalism. Like much
in this festival although the work was truly Herculean there .<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthTGBVt4fYrE598vxS2qW_Awmy50NlWyBF3LG1HJFSLrvEcyanuvPjRm5NE9w2Cg5UR2g0tsgzaKQLvMXvARzBmw6FBXDw01_V7TPSeXYMwgYgldCTKCIxwy1nxjNoQiSq_XgzPIXaLE/s1600/DOKer+team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthTGBVt4fYrE598vxS2qW_Awmy50NlWyBF3LG1HJFSLrvEcyanuvPjRm5NE9w2Cg5UR2g0tsgzaKQLvMXvARzBmw6FBXDw01_V7TPSeXYMwgYgldCTKCIxwy1nxjNoQiSq_XgzPIXaLE/s320/DOKer+team.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Other members of the DOKer team and volunteers.</i></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">7)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">As
the winner of the Grand Prix, Carlos Mignon, noted one of the main themes of the competition
was that of inter-cultural communication and the festival itself was a fine
example of this cross-cultural communication. In this way DOKer can be seen as
a much more contemporary international festival than the main Moscow
International Film Festival precisely because here one senses a real sense of
the potential for a cross-fertilisation of ideas and styles that is not always so
obvious in Moscow’s showcase festival. Obviously the scale of DOKer is much
smaller but its spirit is already much more international.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHESHFqw-Ahn25gkZWBO2Koh2Io3XB_S0FjRa6D7VlOuNpQmfxzYQmCxl_tkL5QbSzSsf5j4w1YJyOiaze3-tv66JO3w0CAAnPTAxWahn9rhUbaHXvHn53GGh2aCX4KT7upvoJRHeTKU/s1600/Yuri+Arabov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHESHFqw-Ahn25gkZWBO2Koh2Io3XB_S0FjRa6D7VlOuNpQmfxzYQmCxl_tkL5QbSzSsf5j4w1YJyOiaze3-tv66JO3w0CAAnPTAxWahn9rhUbaHXvHn53GGh2aCX4KT7upvoJRHeTKU/s320/Yuri+Arabov.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Yuri Arabov, Russia's best-known scriptwriter at the opening of DOKer Festival 2016</i></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">8)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">The reputation of DOKer among Russian documentary film festivals surely has potential of gaining
predominance precisely because it pretends to showcase documentary as such and
not just documentaries on Russian themes or in the Russian languages (such as
<a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2012/12/art-doc-fest-2012-reflections-on.html">Art Doc Fest </a>does), nor just a specific type of documentary (such as the
observational documentary as does Perm’s Flahertiana). These two are both excellent
documentary film festivals and have a very significant role to play but DOKer in a mere two years has
gained definite advantages over them for being the main documentary festival in Russia. All DOKer films are projected with both
English and Russian subtitles (if they are not in those languages) and by so doing this alone it has meant that
it has set its sights on being the only truly International festival of documentary
film in Russia. Moreover, by avoiding the niche territory (nonetheless, it
has also managed to captured one niche field by being the only festival in the world with a special programme devoted to IT documentaries) it
also lays a claim to becoming a <i>mainstream </i>international
festival of documentary film.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9x8fD7Vxi5fyaLg_orSHl6chRyZqGhyphenhyphenFNqr_LHkxpGXQRsAK_CE6lf7TqtkJk8hBemDK8xV1LW8dzvzBK233j2SuVDNoAHlvKcFzfHZ30Fc3P_UoIAtl9DHfChYtWnNfBVVc2PgIq9SY/s1600/DOKer+2016+Mike+Lerner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9x8fD7Vxi5fyaLg_orSHl6chRyZqGhyphenhyphenFNqr_LHkxpGXQRsAK_CE6lf7TqtkJk8hBemDK8xV1LW8dzvzBK233j2SuVDNoAHlvKcFzfHZ30Fc3P_UoIAtl9DHfChYtWnNfBVVc2PgIq9SY/s320/DOKer+2016+Mike+Lerner.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mike Lerner, British film producer and jury member of DOKer</i></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">9)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">DOKer
has made a special effort in inviting excellent teams of jurors to judge its
films in competition. If last year they managed to attract one of the greatest
documentarists of our times Viktor Kossakovsky, this year they attracted a very
wide range of globally renowned and highly-professional figures from all
sectors of the film world (editors, producers, distributors, directors,
screenwriters, critics as well as film programmers). So this year juries comprised of people like
Mike Lerner (a previous award- winner at the Moscow International Film Festival
documentary competition), Sara Fgaier (probably Italy’s most promising film
editor), Pirjo Honkasalo (an award winner of three awards at the Venice Film
festival for her ‘The Three Rooms of Melancholia’) as well as industry and
all-round figures or industry figures such as Giovanni Robbiano (a member of
the European Film Academy) or Alexandra Derewienko and programmers like Dorota
Lech (who programmes films for Toronto and Hot Docs). This plus some impressive
figures from the Russian film world – Georgy Molodtsov (programmer at the
Moscow IFF), Alyona Polunina ( a well-known documentary film-maker in Russia)
and Mikhail Ratgauz (one of Russia’s most well-known independent journalist/
editors as well as film critic).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn-IFsw3KWj8of32ZBTVNuq1nnmO0MD_OoxdkhTGNg7IG6IEJyDA_vhpFKFIpcFDJR974_YB6DwKOKuMqBrmvnaJ9HLLzojbsMXA16wpBGTumKH0eb0x3bqV-GGFiUgmaG2J8nZ-2wT4/s1600/Carlos+Mignon+Grand+Prix+winner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn-IFsw3KWj8of32ZBTVNuq1nnmO0MD_OoxdkhTGNg7IG6IEJyDA_vhpFKFIpcFDJR974_YB6DwKOKuMqBrmvnaJ9HLLzojbsMXA16wpBGTumKH0eb0x3bqV-GGFiUgmaG2J8nZ-2wT4/s320/Carlos+Mignon+Grand+Prix+winner.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Carlos Mignon, winner of this year's Gran Prix award.</i></td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">10)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">And
then there are, of course, the films. 1,700 submissions from 97 countries out of
which 40 were selected. Films selected were practically all premieres in Russia.
These films certainly demonstrate that DOKer is already well-established on the
international circuit of documentary film (they included many Russian premieres
of films that has fared well at some of the most well-known documentary
festivals – IDFA or Hot Docs etc. Many films were certainly world class documentaries
and the festival certainly had a very varied repertoire. So very fine aesthetic experiments such as
Mark John Ostrowski’s <i>Sixty Spanish
Cigarettes </i>would appear alongside other films which concentrsted on its deep psychologically-driven story such as Carlos Mignon’s intensely-ambitious film about the encounters and disencounters within a family. Equally, in the IT competition the film which won the main award (<i>Dreams Rewired</i>) was one that would delight ardent cinephiles the
world over. The fact that <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/03/alexander-rastorguevs-natural-cinema.html">Alexander Rastorguev’s</a> latest film on Norilsk was presented at
DOKer is also an indication that Russia’s most original documentary filmmakers take this film festival seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-HdB-KfCpdGS0fGhWnU0DhWMkiaI5SWAO_8Y02Ya9KBPIQuOtHibzEGSuPBJkZn7FXXlFCjDYhBHSmK-I5weBnR41V1Q8k8YizEeqYRKJmAXbBwMDXgWOa20pDp4f-l_bLhDLV-XYOY/s1600/DOKer2016%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-HdB-KfCpdGS0fGhWnU0DhWMkiaI5SWAO_8Y02Ya9KBPIQuOtHibzEGSuPBJkZn7FXXlFCjDYhBHSmK-I5weBnR41V1Q8k8YizEeqYRKJmAXbBwMDXgWOa20pDp4f-l_bLhDLV-XYOY/s320/DOKer2016%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">DOKer in a very short space of time has proved that it is worthy of a place in the global documentary film circuit and has shown in only its second edition that it is able to organize a full-scale documentary festival which does attract large </span>while numbers of filmgoers even while foregoing any state support. There certainly exists the skills and competence among the DOKer
team to make this an ever-growing feature (adding further fixtures as the festival progresses- this year a Master Class with Mike Lerner was one of the side events) with the confidence that this can one day belong to the Class A of documentary
festivals. Now, of course, there is the long road to climb for the kind of
funding and national and international recognition that it has proven to deserve.</div>
giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-2374178218187363102016-05-21T03:34:00.001-07:002016-05-22T06:33:07.228-07:00DOKer II Day One and Two and Further Recommendations <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A clip from the opening film <i>Ruch and Norie.</i></td></tr>
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The 2nd DOKer International Film Festival has got off to an excellent start with some excellent films. The opening film at the festival took place at one of Moscow's largest cinema's 'October' on the central Noviy Arbat street. That an independent festival of documentary cinema can open at Moscow's major cinema and call almost entirely fill its main screen (something that only the main Moscow International Film Festival is able to do) is a sign of genuine hope for the future of documentary in Russia indicating a real thirst for reality in a world that seems to be becoming ever more phantasmagorical.<br />
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Day One and Day Two saw some very powerful films being shown. The opening film was a hymn to cross-cultural communication in the guise of a story of friendship between a young Japanese anthropologist and an elderly Latvian grandmother from a small ethnic community and entitled <i>Ruch and Norie</i>. Very strong visually and able to transmit deep transmit human emotions in such a way that palpably moved the audience to this unforced story of a very unlikely friendship.<br />
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Day Two had some gems too. One was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/14/democracy-film-european-data-protection-privacy-debate">David Bernet's </a><i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/14/democracy-film-european-data-protection-privacy-debate">Democracy</a> </i>with an in-depth and behind the scenes look at<i> </i>the European parliament and the battles and pressure on a German Green politician by big business. Day Two was also the long-awaited Russian film by the Rastorguev film Norilsk: A First Person Account which I'll be reviewing soon.<br />
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The New Zealand film <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2015/sep/11/the-ground-we-won-new-zealand-rugby-club-documentary-video">The Ground We Won</a> </i>a cinema verite film by Cristopher Pryor and Miriam Smith on the bawdy world of a rugby team of New Zealander farmers. There were interesting shorts such as the film <a href="https://vimeo.com/151152044">Guillo</a> - a tale of freedom and loneliness.<br />
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Today has some excellent films too. Starting with a film about Trieste that sismograph of Europe. Perhaps the film that I'm most waiting for having lived in the city for two years. A tale of immigration unlike others in which the immigrants and the city of reflect each other as in a poem by Umberto Saba that great cantor of this atypical Italian city. The gaze of the city from a filmmaker from Marseilles, Jean Boiron Lajous, and his documentary subjects has also had some very positive <a href="http://ricerca.gelocal.it/ilpiccolo/archivio/ilpiccolo/2016/01/03/nazionale-i-quattro-volti-di-trieste-terra-di-nessuno-37.html">reviews from the Italian press</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A clip from the film <i>Terra di Nessuno </i>on Trieste</td></tr>
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The theme emigration is also touched on in the next film today entitled <a href="https://vimeo.com/131027953">Sixty Spanish Cigarettes</a>, a minimalist metaphor for Spain's bleak and growingly desperate socioeconomic in which emigration is one of the only ways out. This is the first time it will be shown outside of Mediterranean film festivals.<br />
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The third film in the main competition is <a href="https://vimeo.com/131564811">Lenin Park</a>, once again a Spanish-language film, this time from Cuba. A documentary by Carlos Mignon and Itziar Leemans. Taking its name from a Havana amusement park where the Kessel Brothers share their last memory. A film elegy on the death of a mother, on the difficulty of life without her and once again a film on emigration.<br />
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Today's films also include four shorts and three films from the Let IT Dok! competition. The only IT documentary competition in the world- an area that DOKer has marked out completely for itself.<br />
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Tomorrow's film from the Let IT Dok! competition <i>Capital C</i> is said to be one of the most awaited films of the festival. A crowdfunded film on the crowdfunding and shot in 24 countries, the film has already been making waves throughout the world.<br />
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Two more films deal with an African subject matter (or rather Euro-African links). Both Warriors and Leaving Africa promise to be of interest:<br />
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On Monday the Let IT Dok! competition has another very strong contender in the guise of a film narrated by Tilda Swinton explaining how the mania for new technology is as old as the hills:<br />
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A glowing four star review in the <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/11/dreams-rewired-review-marvellous-tech-film">Guardian</a> </i>reveals details as to why this may be one of the films to look out for at this festival and a film that most determinedly references early Soviet cinema.<br />
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An Pakistani film shown at IDFA <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/145708304">A Walnut Tree</a> </i>and an Iranian film <i>Wedding</i> shown at Leipzig also are likely to surprise and delight audiences.giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-85400734725591391692016-05-18T02:57:00.001-07:002016-05-18T02:57:57.475-07:00International Documentary Showcased in Moscow: Year 2 of the Doker International Film Festival.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Second Edition of the DOKer International Documentary Film Festival will be opening in a couple of days time and will last from May 19th to May 24th. It has already established a reputation as the only genuinely international festival of documentary film in Russia. Unlike festivals such as Art Doc Fest it doesn't concentrate its gaze on Russian documentaries, or films with Russian subject matter or in the Russian language. And unlike Perm's Flahertiana festival it does not devote itself to a niche of purely observational documentaries. Instead it tries and succeeds in its goal of bringing high-class art documentaries from every continent to Moscow thus contributing to that much needed dialogue with the international documentary community. A brief look at the upcoming programme of the festival shows how the DOKer team have rapidly earned their reputation of being the main forum where international documentaries can be seen and discussed in Russia. This year at just its second edition, 1,700 films from 97 countries have been submitted. Many of the films have been specially invited to the DOKer festival after their world premieres at such prestigious world film festivals such as the Berlinale and Locarno and at the highly regarded documentary film festivals such as Canada's Hot Docs and Amsterdam's IDFA. <br />
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This year as well as the main competition programme showcasing some very fine feature length films from New Zealand to Peru and the shorts programme (hosting those new filmmakers who may well go on to become the next generation of leading documentary filmmakers), there is a new competition programme featuring a rather unique genre of documentaries that has, it seems, no other major festival platform in the world. This is the "Let IT Dok" programme of documentaries on Information Technology.<br />
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All selected films will have their Russian premiere at this festival. The festival itself sprung up as a result of an extraordinarily heroic experiment by a small team of documentary filmmakers who, since 2011, have been bringing documentary film to many towns and cities across Russia (and not just to its capital). The DOKer Project doesn't limit itself to films showings but also organizes discussions with the team behind the film, master classes, closed screenings before world premieres and often assists and supports the local theatrical releases of Russian films. On top of the festival screenings the team have organised over 350 screenings of documentary films to an audience of over 30,000. Sometimes these screenings have paved the way to participation in various important film festivals.<br />
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All this hard work has paid off with the formation of this festival, now in its second edition after an extremely successful first run.<br />
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Four Russian films will be introduced at the festival. In the main competition programme, Maria Murashova will present her <i>Collectors of Sea Grass </i>whose first screening took place at the <b>Dvizhenie </b>Film Festival in Omsk where it won the first prize in the Documentary Competition. There are two short films by Vladimir Golovnev (<i>Two Childhoods</i>) and Yulia Panasenko (<i>Intro</i>- the second film of a dilogy, the first of which won various important national film awards). In the "Let IT Dok" section, a well-known web documentary interactive project is taking part created by the large team of documentalists under the direction of Alexander Rastorguev and Alexei Pivovarov with their film project "<b>Norilsk In the First Person"</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Lerner, a jury member who will be giving a Master Class at the Festival</td></tr>
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The three juries who will judge the films are made up of some very fine professionals in their field. <b><u>Mike Lerner</u></b>, the British producer and director who was nominated for an Oscar for his film <b>Hell and Back Again. </b>Lerner is also the holder of six <b>Sundance Festival </b>awards and two <b>Emmy's.</b> His work has also touched Russian subject matters such as <i>Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. </i>As has the work of<b> </b><u style="font-weight: bold;">Pirjo Honkasalo </u>whose 2004 portrait of Chechnya in her film <i>Three Rooms of Melancholia </i>won many international film awards including three special awards at the Venice Film festival in 2004. It created a stunning portrait of the tragic affect of the Chechen conflict on children in Russia and Chechnya prompting the New York Times critic to call it "one of the saddest films ever made". There are jurists from Italy- <b><u>Giovanni Robbiano</u>,</b> a scriptwriter, member of the European Film Academy, who works at Praguee's prestigious FAMU and <b><u>Sara Fgaier</u>, </b>perhaps Italy's most outstanding film editor who has worked with <b>Pietro Marcello </b>on his extraordinary films as well as with <b>Gianfranco Rosi</b>- the documentary filmmaker who regularly receives main prizes at the most highly regarded film festivals in the world with his fascinating documentaries which leave the feature films far behind in the consideration of juries. As well as working on <i>The Silence of Peleshian</i>, Sara Fgaier has worked on the extraordinary film <i>The Train to Moscow: A Journey to Utopia </i>using found video footage about Italian Communists who travelled to the 1957 World Youth Festival in Moscow and who discovered a world not altogether matching their utopian imagination. Russian jury members include the film director <b>Alyona Polunina </b>whose glimpse of an extraordinary middle aged Moscovite <i>Varya</i> who set off on a voyage through Ukraine meeting what should have been her 'enemies' lit up the audience at least year's festival with an tempestuous discussion. The film was then to find itself in censorship problems with the Minister of Culture refusing it a license. One of Russia's most interesting critics (not just of film) and journalists<b> <u>Mikhail Rathaus</u> </b>will also serve in a jury as will <b><u>Georgiy Molodtsov</u></b> one of the real 'movers and shakers' in Russian documentary film and a curator of the superb documentary programme of the Moscow International Film Festival.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sara Fgaier, one of Italy's best film editors who has worked with Gianfranco Rosi and Pietro Marcello.</td></tr>
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The opening film of the festival to be shown on May 19th will be the Latvian film <i>Ruch and Norie - </i>an splendid film on cross-cultural communication which talks of the encounter of two exotic worlds: that of a young Japanese anthropologist and a grey-haired granny Ruch from a small ethnic community in Latvia. The director Inara Kolmane won many national awards for her film and has become a real star in Latvia cinema. The closing and awards ceremony will take place on the 24th May. These will both take place at the Cinema October on the Noviy Arbat. <br />
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-12754374103862625742016-02-28T14:26:00.002-08:002016-02-29T12:18:29.898-08:00The Untapped Significance of Russian Documentary Film. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A still from Elena Demidova's film about Gazprom workers <i>Men's Choice.</i> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A few days ago there appeared on one of the most interesting English-language blogs on Russia (Sean's Russia Blog) an <a href="http://seansrussiablog.org/2016/02/25/is-there-life-on-mars-an-interview-with-elena-demidova-on-mens-choice/">interview with the Russian documentary film-maker, Elena Demidova</a>. An interview that I'd very much encourage people to read - whether they are curious about Russia or film critics. Apart from being one of the most interesting places to go for a real, concrete analysis of what is actually happening in Russia (I'd add two great more politically engaged blogs here: <a href="https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/">the Russian Reader</a> and <a href="https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/">People and Nature</a>), Sean Guillory's blog has now thrown a rare spotlight on one of those immense and almost entirely untapped sources which could provide people outside of Russia with a way to resist that poverty of imagination when it comes to 'picturing Russia'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Indeed how many articles and analyses will the 'informed Russia watcher' have read about Gazprom without ever imagining for one moment what the life of a worker at one of its oil or gas fields is actually like. As Guillory argues in his introduction to the interview the viewing of a documentary film like Demidova's opens up our visions all too often narrowed by the turgid commentary of yet another newspaper article fitting into the same narrow field of vision which we are accustomed to. Instead a documentary film like <i style="font-weight: bold;">Men's Choice</i> gives us a new opportunity to imagine from an original perspective:</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: black;">What I saw was something outsiders rarely hear about Russia—the lives of the thousands of people, mostly men, who travel extraordinary distances to Russia’s far north to work in the natural gas fields. These men work on rotations—a month of constant work on, and a month back home. This labor forces them to be separated from their families for long periods of time. Why do they do it? For money, quite simply. Working at Russia’s vast gas fields is far more lucrative than the work available in the small towns and villages many of these men hail from.</b></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;">I found <i style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Men’s Choice</i> fascinating for its human touch against the backdrop of hard labor and a harsh environment.</b></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In fact many of Demidova's films allow us to peer through into life lived which has been denied us by so much 'Russia discourse'. Whether they concentrate on<a href="http://dafilms.com/film/8233-lesha/"> Lesha's tour</a> of his burnt out village to highlight the forest fires in the summer of 2010 or the couple resisting eviction from their <i>khruschevka flat </i>(a typical 5-storey building built in the Khruschev era and symbolic of what is now seen as poor quality housing) in <b style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://trentofestival.it/en/2015-edition/program/movies/sasha-lena-and-the-iron-dragon/">Sasha, Lena and the Iron Dragon</a>, </b>her films give that kind of insight into the texture of people's lived lives. Portraits that break against the hierarchy of classification and deny those 'fixed images' through which a view of Russia is imposed.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A still from Demidova's <i>Sasha, Lena and the Iron Dragon</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: normal;">It is the rare newspaper which will even print an article about the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2015-12-17/keep-trucking">ongoing truckers strike in Russia</a> denoting something of the hierarchy of concerns for editors</span><b style="font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </b><span style="line-height: normal;">when it comes to Russian news but how can we start to even imagine the life of a long distance trucker in real, concrete detail without having watched Sergei Kachkin's <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://onthewayhome.eu/">On the Way Home</a> </i>with its intimate portrait of a trucker and his wife as well as an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8nH8cftsyQ">extraordinary sequence of truckers and their radio communications with each other</a> telling us more about life on a Russian road than any mere article could imagine to conjure up. </span><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The subject of Sergei Kachkin's <i>On the Way Home</i> a long-distance truck driver.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(Here one could equally launch into a passionate defence of other documentary forms when it comes to the truckers strike or other social acts of social resistance whether it be in the extraordinary photos posted in the <a href="http://anatrrra.livejournal.com/226587.html">anattrrra.ru live journal</a> or in Victoria Lomasko's very fine documentary drawings of the truckers <a href="https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/lomasko-russian-truckers-nationwide-strike/">discussing and preparing their nationwide strike</a>. How, too, can we imagine the real circumstances of the activity of independent trade unionists without having watched Svetlana Baskova's documentary <i>One solution- resistance </i>(upon which her film <i><a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2012/07/svetlana-baskovas-for-marx-landmark-in.html">For Marx</a></i> shown at the Berlinale was based)?</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What are the hundreds of articles on Boris Nemtsov able to tell in comparison to the extraordinary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybzbvqPGXwI">film portrait by Zosya Rodkevich</a> <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2015/12/04/my-friend-boris-nemtsov">My Friend Boris Nemtsov</a> shot when Nemtsov was still alive? Or those other documentaries such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPj-Csbnk0">Winter, Go Away </a> allowing us to see a collective portrait of Moscow in a time of political turbulence or those other political portrait films, for example </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">Evegenia Montan'a Ibanez's</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;"> portrait of the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">now imprisoned</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;"> Left Front leader, Sergei Udaltsov, or the </span><a href="http://rgdoc.ru/en/industry/films/5977-the-term/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: normal;">Term project by Pivoravov, Kostomarov and Rastorguev</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;"> in many ways more interesting in its individual sequences than in the finished film. Followed up by their recent Realnost project and </span><a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/03/anna-niemans-interview-with-pavel.html" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: normal;">their previous experiments in devolving power to the film subjects by letting people shoot films about themselves</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">, the ability to grasp 'Russian reality' politically and socially is within reach. It's just that the opportunity is all too rarely taken up.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A scene from the almanac film on Russia's protest movement of 2011/2 <i>Winter, Go Away</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It would be hard in this single post to list the whole gamut of documentaries in Russia and its near abroad worth watching. Yet I hope to start doing this in follow up posts on this and include some interviews with documentary film-makers both here and in other venues such as film journals like the <a href="http://brightlightsfilm.com/emerging-cinema-new-forms-documentary-post-soviet-russia/#.VtK7tfl97IU">Bright Light Film Journal</a> where I published a general overview of some of the more established figures in the Russian documentary film world. I also hope to discuss the situation surrounding documentary film-making in Russia looking at documentary film festivals such as <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/12/art-doc-fest-2013-look-at-films-awarded.html">ArtDocFest</a> and the <a href="https://filmfreeway.com/festival/MIDFF">new and exciting international documentary film festival in Moscow DOKer</a> which developed out of a project to bring both Russian and world documentary to the Russian public (and not just to Moscow's but throughout the whole of the country). The institutional set up will also not be ignored, although it is pleasantly surprising how the desperately inane activities of Russia's Ministry of Culture in trying to dictate documentary norms have not been as successful as it hopes. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tvkinoradio.ru/upload/ckeditor/article/images/%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://tvkinoradio.ru/upload/ckeditor/article/images/%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%80.jpg" height="198" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The poster for the 2016 2nd DOKer Film festival to take place in the Spring</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Indeed, the inanity and short-sightedness is not restricted just to Russia's Ministry of Culture. One's scepticism could and should extend to the inadequacy of documentary establishments outside Russia. I have written elsewhere about the <a href="https://afoniya.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/no-potemkin-please-we-prefer-our-harry-potter-or-on-the-decline-of-the-british-film-journalist/">'splendid isolationism' of the British press and film critics</a> when it comes to foreign language film. Maybe it is necessary to talk, too, about the myopia of some of those who have the ability to change things in the documentary scene itself outside of Russia. I recall a visit by <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2014/06/new-russian-documentaries-in-pipeline.html">Nick Fraser of BBC's Storyville to Russia's Moscow Business Square in 2014</a> to judge some promising new documentaries being pitched there. It seemed to me that Fraser failed to appreciate the particular world of Russian documentary. It was, for example, French television which had the sense to acknowledge the force, relevance and innovatory approach of Anna Moiseenko's documentary <b><a href="http://rgdoc.ru/en/industry/projects/3840-migrants-ballad/">Abdul Ballade</a></b> about a Tajik folk singer and migrant who composed ballads about his daily life in Moscow even though this and many other films of considerable interest were first pitched to the phlegmatic Fraser. Just one of the examples as to how myopia from those who could change things regarding the reception of Russian documentaries in Britain prevent them from doing so. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/teatrdoc/19789369/11559/11559_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/teatrdoc/19789369/11559/11559_640.jpg" height="235" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f1f1f1; color: #888888; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Folksinger and migrant Abdumamad Bekmamadov, the protagonist of Anna Moiseenko's <i>A Migrant's Life</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In spite of all the myopia of many film commissioners in the UK and elsewhere, there are reasons for hope. These films will in any case be precious documents in years to come. This generation of documentary filmmakers will surely gradually become discovered and rediscovered in time. And the contacts between and the mutual influences of documentary filmmakers between Russian and elsewhere have already brought many fruits. A process of miscegenation is already happily underway. Films like Marco Raffaini's </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.italianiverifilm.com/">Italiani Veri</a> </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(on the emergence of Italian light music in the Soviet Union) or the forthcoming </span><a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2014/07/re-imagining-soviet-popular-culture-on.html" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Soviet Groove</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> by the Franco-American ensemble of Louis Beaudemont and Alexei Gittelson enable us to look back at Soviet reality with completely unexpected eyes as does the film by the Austro-Russian duo </span><a href="http://www.elektromoskva.com/english" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Elena Tikhonova and Dominik Spriztendorfer Elektro Moskva</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">, a fascinating essayistic documentary on the Soviet electronic age and its legacy as well as the larger than life figure of Leon Theremin. Russian documentarists, too, have given some fascinating portraits of foreign societies. Victor Kossakovsky and his students Spanish film ballet </span><a href="https://demonstrationfilm.wordpress.com/news/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Demonstration</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> is one of the most extraordinary films on popular unrest and strikes to have been made in recent years. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media9.fast-torrent.ru/media/files/s4/xu/yu/elektro-moskva-scene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://media9.fast-torrent.ru/media/files/s4/xu/yu/elektro-moskva-scene.jpg" height="178" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A scene from <i>Elektro Moskva</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All this may go past the heads of Britain's semi-ignorant film establishment (though there are some fine exceptions among independent British film critics such as Neil Young and M<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ich<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ael</span></span> Pa<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t</span>tison very much open to the aesthetic lure and significance of the art documentary from this part of the world) but sooner or later future historians, as well as future film scholars, will be making their rediscoveries both of these films and of their priceless value as both documents of their time and as film documentaries in their own right.</span></div>
giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-65691945749868736952015-09-27T23:35:00.000-07:002015-12-30T10:39:27.147-08:00Apparatus, a new online journal on Film, Media and Digital Culture in Central and Eastern Europe.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.apparatusjournal.net/index.php/apparatushttp://www.apparatusjournal.net/index.php/apparatus">A new international research journal has just been launched</a> which will be focused on film, media and digital culture and is focused on Central and Eastern Europe (that is much of the Post-Soviet space). The first issue of this bi-annual journal is now online, open to access for all- academics, interested journalists as well as film buffs interested in this area of the world. Unlike some other online titles it is truly looking for an international and multi-lingual audience. The articles can be in any of the languages spoken in Central and Eastern Europe as well as English (and indeed in the first issue articles are in four different languages: German, Ukrainian, Russian and English) and the website as a whole is trilingual: in German, Russian and English. Twelve authors were engaged in writing four peer reviewed articles, five reviews and an editorial and their geographical spread is also fairly wide: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Russia, Sweden, UK and the US just as the geographical spread of the subjects involved. There is a core editorial team of four including Natascha Drubek as Editor in Chief, Irina Schulzki as Review Sections Editor and Mario Slugan who is the Managing Editor. Among its Editorial Board are names very well-known to those interested in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema and a mark of true quality of thought including Naum Kleiman and Oleg Aronson as well as Vladimir Padunov from Pittsburg.<br />
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This is its official launch statement by the editorial team:<br />
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<b>Dear colleagues and friends!</b><br />
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<b>The editorial team of the international research journal APPARATUS is pleased to announce its launch and the release of its first issue.</b><br />
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<b>APPARATUS is a peer-reviewed online journal focused on film, media and digital cultures in Central and Eastern Europe. The main aim of the editorial team is to keep abreast with the practice of the leading international research periodicals. Our basic editorial principles are:</b><br />
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<b>OPEN ACCESS the journal is freely available online ensuring maximum accessibility and international dissemination of journal content</b><br />
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<b>DOUBLE BLIND PEER REVIEW all articles undergo a double blind peer review process</b><br />
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<b>The novelty of the journal consists in its MULTI-LINGUAL CONTENT</b><br />
<b>articles and reviews are published in different languages,</b><br />
<b>including those used in the regions the journal focuses on,</b><br />
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<b>as well as in its MULTIMEDIA FORMAT the electronic publication allows contributors to insert not only figures and links,</b><br />
<b>but also audio- and video-files directly within texts.</b><br />
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<b>APPARATUS is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and hosted by the Free University of Berlin. Long-term storage of published materials is ensured by the German National Library.</b><br />
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<b>The initiator and chief-editor of the journal is Dr. Natascha Drubek. The international Editorial Board includes leading scholars, archivists, curators and artists in the field of media research of Central and Eastern Europe. Apparatus accepts both unsolicited and solicited submissions. The journal is published twice a year either as an open call issue or a special issue.</b><br />
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<b>You can find out more about the content of the site in English, German or Russian, read the first issue and submit applications on:</b><br />
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<b>www.apparatusjournal.net</b><br />
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The journal also has a page on Facebook which one can like and on which articles for the journal as well as other articles on relevant subject matter will be posted:<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/apparatusjournal?fref=nf">https://www.facebook.com/apparatusjournal?fref=nf</a><br />
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The articles published in the first issue include articles on Vertov's and Medvedkin's Film Trains and Agit Steamers of the 1920 and 30s. The next article is a much more theoretical article in Ukrainian on the difference between the use of the terms 'apparatus' and 'dispositif' (introduced by Jean-Louis Baudry in the 1970s) and how drawing a distinction between the two concepts may help us to analyse such a film like Parjanov 'The Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors' or Leonid Lukov's early post-war second part of 'A Great Life'. Other articles cover art rather than film as such with Inke Arns comparing Moscow's Collective Actions Group with Poland's Kwiekulik. Mark Lipovetsky then discusses how Pussy Riot laid bare both neo-traditionalist discourse but also the underlying hypocrisy of some of the liberal opposition. He locates the actual performances as a cultural return to and rebirth of the 'trickster trope' which was powerful in the Soviet period but declined in post-Soviet times. Then come the reviews of books (including one of Evgenii Margolit's vital 'The Living and the Dead: Notes on the History of Soviet Cinema 1920s-1960s as well as Philip Cavendish's fine book on 1920s Soviet cinematography).<br />
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A final review article is devoted to the Festival of Archive Film <i>Belye Stolby </i>by Georgii Borodin, the great animation specialist of the old Musei Kino team.<br />
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A great start to what promises to be a fine new venture in international research on a whole number of original topics in this growing field.<br />
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<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-90796070001998512442015-05-19T03:39:00.003-07:002015-05-19T06:58:25.544-07:00DOKer 2015: the birth of a major new international documentary film festival in Russia.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2015 so far has been one of the most difficult and depressing years for Russian cinema and especially for Russian film festivals. The starving of funds to some of the very best film festivals in Russia such as the <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2015/01/2morrow-rare-oasis-of-hope-for.html">2morrow/завтра film festival</a> or the <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/12/art-doc-fest-2013-look-at-films-awarded.html">Art Doc Fest</a> which had its government funding taken from it by Culture Minister, Vladimir Medinsky, in one of those demonstrations of the <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/news/show/3389/state-funds-pulled-russian-film-festival-artdocfest-mansky-ukraine-crisis">assertion of bureaucratic and political control</a> of which there have been many in the past two or three years. A similar threat to the <a href="http://www.voices-festival.org/en/news/voices-shest-est">Vologda International Film Festival</a> (VOICES), (a festival which screens independent European cinema) has been only partially avoided. So while news over the past year has been generally negative, seeing existential threats to high-quality and well-established film festivals, there now seems to be at least one silver lining in this gloomy atmosphere. This is represented by the emergence of a new major documentary film festival from a team who have for the past four years taken documentary films from throughout the world to Moscow and the Russian regions. The team behind the Doker project consisting mainly of Irina Shatalova, Igor Morozov and Nastia Tarasova, producers and directors of documentary films, have since 2011 organised 300 screenings of non-feature films throughout Russia. This project, moreover, has finally led to a full-blown festival in which the links built up over the past years have ensured that it has a truly international feel to it. The festival will screen 45 films from 32 countries and five continents. The films will come from far and wide: from Belgium to Afghanistan, from Argentina to South Africa.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Victor Kossakovsky, described by Robert Greene as 'one of the greatest documentarians alive', will head the Main Competition Jury.</td></tr>
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The jury too will be composed of an almost entirely international team. Apart from Victor Kossakovsky who many see as Russia's greatest living documentary film-maker and even according to one account '<a href="http://nonfics.com/shots-canon-belovs-victor-kossakovsky-1994/">one of the greatest documentarians alive'</a> (and who will head the main competition jury) and the Russian director, screenwriter and producer, Alexei Vakhrushev (who will be part of the shorts jury) all other members are from outside Russia. Greece is represented by the film critic Vassilis Economou who has reported from a number of A-list festivals and who writes for a number of film sites, the USA by <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/03/anna-niemans-interview-with-pavel.html">Anna Nieman</a>, Poland (the camera operator Mateusz Skalski who was took the award for best camera work at the Krakow International Festival), the Danish cinema scholar <a href="http://www.edn.dk/news/news-story/article/the-edn-award-2014-is-presented-to-tue-steen-mueller/?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=111">Tue Steen Muller</a>, Slovakia (Peter Kerekes, the producer of the irreverent documentary film <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/velvet-terrorists-karlovy-vary-review-581677">Velvet Terrorists</a> and the Portuguese producer <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2609580/">Pedro Fernandes Duarte</a>.<br />
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The festival run completely independently and on a shoe string will consist of three programmes: a main competition programme, a shorts programme and a special programme entitled "Cinema in Cinema" which will include films on the shooting process of films as well as about film directors. The opening film will be the South African film <b>Calabash </b>on the first ever football World Cup to be held in an African country:<br />
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The festival will take place in two stages. The first stage will be from Friday this week to Tuesday next week (May 22nd to May 26th) where all the films will be shown at the DomZhur cinema near Moscow's Arbat. In September there will be repeat screenings of the winners and award ceremony. The organisers have announced a crowd funding campaign for the festival, the link to which can be found here: <a href="httt://planeta.ru/campaigns/doker2015">httt://planeta.ru/campaigns/doker2015</a><br />
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Free tickets to the screenings can be booked here: <a href="http://doker.timepad.ru/">doker.timepad.ru</a> and more information can be found on the festival site here: <a href="http://www.midff.com/">www.midff.com</a><br />
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<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-90841910836293283922015-05-03T10:38:00.000-07:002024-02-28T02:15:54.059-08:00A Boris Barnet Project.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A book on Boris
Barnet now seems to be a long abandoned project of mine: it has even been some time since I’ve re-watched a Barnet film. Yet while the idea refuses to leave me there has been always one issue that tormented me: </div>
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<b>How to deal
with the weightlessness of Barnet?
If I'm not mistaken Evgenii Margolit once suggested that Eisenstein and Barnet could
be seen as the two forces (maybe constellations?) in early Soviet cinema which
pulsate and attract different, if not opposing, forces. … yet while Eisenstein left a seemingly endless
trail behind him of written documents which give witness to almost every thought process of his imaginable and so help illuminate his creations, Barnet left almost no documents behind
him but his films. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">How then to
work with this silence of his? Compared to the verbosity of Eisenstein and the relative verbosity of those such as Pudovkin, Kuleshov, Dovzhenko etc
who left many written accounts (even if not such detailed ones as Eisenstein), Barnet's reticence feels unbearable for any would-be author on a book about him?
What could such a book look like? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Maybe there is one solution. To turn a Barnet project into something that would illuminate not simply his cinema but the time in which he lived.</span></div>
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There, of
course, is still the chance of writing a good cinematic account of each of his
films attempting to look at them from the cinematic context of the time as
well as his place in Soviet film and world cinema. Fascinating things would
emerge if one looks at Barnet in the context of, for example, French poetic
realism and exploring Barnet’s relation to his contemporary Soviet colleagues.
Yet writing about Barnet could include much more than a cinematic
account. </div>
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Maybe one can see what one can learn from an anthropological viewpoint, from a
sociological viewpoint, from literary studies, a studies of gestures, city
studies, fashion studies and then try to recreate Barnet's films from all this. Yet all too often this approach is one that often kills the object of
study by dissecting cinema from fashionable scientific approaches
rather than the films still themselves remaining obscure objects of desire.</div>
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If almost anything could illuminate Barnet, maybe his films too can
illuminate a whole universe of social relations in the first four decades of the Soviet Union. In a very different way than from the films of Eisenstein. Thankfully Soviet cinema had both Eisenstein the cerebral genius and Barnet the intuitional one: well clearly it's not that simple, but... While<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;">Eisenstein often seems like a sun that blackens out all other planets (Pudovkin, for example) there is a sense in which Barnet managed to transfer himself to another solar system so that doesn't need to</span></span> be seen to be in any competition with Eisenstein. </div>
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So perhaps there are things that one can
learn from Barnet that one can’t possibly learn from Eisenstein and this resides in his more direct link to the mores and social reality of his time and to Soviet <i>byt </i>than Eisenstein
does. A study of Barnet can thus be more a study of his time than a study of
Eisenstein might be. </div>
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I have often thought how just as a
reading of Baudelaire led to Benjamin’s Arcades Project, a Barnet
project could also develop infinitely into some comparable project of the
Soviet times in which he made his films. </div>
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Here are some of the folder
names ready into which endless notes can be written: </div>
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Red Pinkertonism, chemical/biological warfare paranoia in the Soviet 20’s (Miss Mend);<br />
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Virgin
Lands (Alyonka);<br />
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the <i>kvartirny vopros </i>(Girl with a Hatbox and House on Trubnaya); </div>
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amateur
theatres in the Soviet twenties (House on Trubnaya); </div>
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poetic/artistic disputes
after the revolution; the poet Bagritsky; Odessa in the aftermath of the Revolution (Poet)</div>
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the history of the Russian and Soviet circus (The wrestler and the clown)</div>
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love triangles and the personal and the political (By the Bluest of Seas; Bountiful Summer);</div>
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Barnet as the poet of weariness (The Old Jockey, Whistlestop);</div>
Then there's the relatively unexplored worlds of the Mezhrabpom Studios and the lack of English-language studies of lyric comedies in Soviet film (if it were not for Barnet would there have emerged a Danelia or a Ioselliani? and what of the direct influence that Barnet exercised on his assistants Khutsiev and Gaidai who worked with him on Liana?).
Then there would have to be lengthy folders on everyone Barnet worked with: from scriptwriters to actors and cameramen: Shershenevich, Erdman (or to be more the Erdman’s as he worked with three of the family), Garin, Rodchenko, the émigrés- Otsep, Anna Sten etc as well as the story of Koval'-Samborsky who after acting in Barnet's early films left the Soviet Union, was an emigre, then fled the Nazis and was then sent into exile before his rehabilitation and reappearance in Barnet's <i>Poet,</i> the established Soviet actors eg Nikolai
Kriuchkov. The various theatres and directors from which Barnet poached his actors etc. (Protazanov; and the Meyerkhold, MKhAT actors etc).
These are just some
of the folders that come to mind when developing a Barnet study and surely these would just grow and grow. So this Barnet project is not going to be in book form any time soon...<o:p></o:p></div>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-80845479828063810202015-03-30T10:48:00.000-07:002015-03-30T13:00:36.372-07:00Prince Lemon's (aka the Emperor of Bananas) hostile takeover of Russian theatre!<br />
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Living in Russia in 2014-2015 and trying in some way to make sense of what is happening in Russian culture feels like a daily battle for sanity. That once famous catchphrase that the lunatics were taking over the asylum doesn't feel radical enough somehow. Attempting to describe the sense of absolute impotence at the spectacle of the takeover of the Cinema Museum by a band of barely competent, ideologically-correct tools (patriotic and Orthodox hammers) is one of those moments when writing a detailed account almost feels like a kind of self-harm. How could all of this have actually happened? And was there really so little resistance? No permanent general strike by cultural workers? The story surrounding the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/25/opera-director-charged-by-russian-authorities-with-offending-christians">Tannhauser production in Novosibirsk</a> is also developing into another cause celebre which seems to signal yet another nail in the coffin for independent culture and illuminates one more stage in this story of culture wars going on since early 2000 between moralists (whether of church or state- and they are often the same) and independent artists that came to the fore so dramatically with the trashing of the Beware Religion exhibition at the Sakharov Centre in 2003. <br />
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The latest stage in this saga could be deemed as the one in Prince Lemon took over the theatre (if you know your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_Rodari">Gianni Rodari</a> as many Russians do, or at least used to do). Prince Lemon today has arisen in the form of a former 'Emperor of Bananas' who goes by the name of Vladimir Kekhman. Having controlled the import of one third of the bananas which were brought into Russia in the 1990s and playing, in general, a not insignificant role in the development of Post-Soviet Russian capitalism he decided like <a href="http://lizoksbooks.blogspot.ru/2007/11/mikhail-bulgakov-and-ivan-vasilyevich.html">Bulgakov's (or rather Gaidai's) Ivan Vasilievich</a> that he wanted a change of profession. So the oligarch has in recent years turned ballet and theatre director. I'm not sure if history is very replete with this type of metamorphosis. Somehow I doubt it. Though I've always been intrigued by the fact that Silvio Berlusconi was said to have written a preface to a new edition of Erasmus's <i>In Praise of Folly </i>(I've still yet to get my hands on a copy of his actual text). Kekhman seems to be just as mired as Berlusconi in some very dubious business practices (if one knows Russian one could listen to this <a href="http://tvrain.ru/articles/nravstvennyj_potentsial_kehmana_somnitelnyj_teatroved_dmitrievskaja_o_smene_direktora_novosibirskogo_teatra-384742/">small item on Russia's independent Dozhd' television channel</a>) and managed to find a <a href="http://www.fieldfisher.com/publications/2014/07/bankruptcy-tourism-russian-banks-fail-to-annul-english-bankruptcy-of-russian-businessman#sthash.M6hKjSmL.dpbs">typically British legal loophole to avoid any of the irritating trials</a> that his Italian counterpart has been intermittently subject to. But instead of searching for political power to cover up his misdeeds he and others in the Russian elite are attempting the route of cultural domination.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rumafia.com/images/persons/50/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.rumafia.com/images/persons/50/4.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vladimir Kekhman, the former Banana Emperor, who has taken over the Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet</td></tr>
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From the import of bananas to the director of a major Russian theatre is not such a large step in contemporary Russia even if you have a <a href="http://rapsinews.com/news/20141013/272347145.html">few fraud problems with Russia's state bank</a>. It seems that the trick is simple: supply a suitably patriotic or moralist quote for a Ministry of Culture website denouncing the blasphemous nature of a slightly ose' theatre production and, hey presto, you even get to bag the director's job a few days later. Here's the quote that Kekhman produced denouncing the Tannhauser production in Novosibirsk:<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">As a believer who has been christened in the Orthodox faith, and as a Jew, I take this [production] as an insult. It is a demonstration of internal godlessness in the style and in the spirit of a union of warring infidels. I won’t hide that I spoke today with Mezdrich and he told me that he won’t abandon this production and will stand to the end. I consider that he must resign and that this production must be removed from the repertoire.”</span></blockquote>
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And soon enough a new job in the theatre world was coming the way of the banana emperor and this major new 'force' in the field of Russian culture. Prince Lemon (who Kekhman actually played in one of his own productions), it seems, in today's Russian post-Soviet form of oligarchic capitalism, wishes to direct theatres as well as selling bananas and real estate:<br />
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The grotesque figures directing and controlling culture in contemporary Russia - from Medinsky to Kekhman, - and those religious authorities like the Metropolitan Tikhon's, and assorted Chaplin's (along with the performances of the religious activists such as Enteo) who stir moral panics against any original artistic production not to their liking, is not (yet) the only story in town when it comes to Russian culture but it feels as though their aggressive and increasingly repressive bombardment of independent artists in Russia is reaching heights that feel vertiginous.<br />
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It appears that they won't be content until some form of 'moral control' is exercised at all levels of theatrical production. Reported comments from a high-level official in Putin's administration, <a href="http://top.rbc.ru/politics/30/03/2015/5519064b9a79476db2e06294">Magomedsalam Magomedov, suggests that the state now wants to control theatre production before it gets into the repertoire</a>. Moreover, with his dangerous talk of only showing productions which 'unite people rather than those that divide them' is quite clear that the state officials and the economic elites are interested in using the arts once again as a mobilizing tool in society promoting its own version of patriotic fervour.Whether the resistance of the theatrical and other artistic communities can amount to something real is yet to be seen. The public statements of support by people like Mark Zakharov are welcome as is the very public call from the independently-minded Russian Film-Makers Union to call for the <a href="https://meduza.io/news/2015/03/30/kinosoyuz-rossii-potreboval-uvolneniya-vladimira-medinskogo">reinstatement of Boris Maezdrich and the resignation of Vladimir Medinsky</a>. How the cultural bureaucrats will react this latest act of apparent insubordination remains to be seen. giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-6453027218840182322015-03-09T12:24:00.001-07:002015-03-09T12:28:13.328-07:00Sergei Eisenstein and Don Quixote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCE5cy2tcyB4W5E&w=470&h=246&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnl.media.rbth.ru%2Fweb%2Fes-rbth%2Fimages%2F2015-02%2Fbig%2Fdoquijote468.jpg&cfs=1&upscale=1&sx=0&sy=0&sw=468&sh=245" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCE5cy2tcyB4W5E&w=470&h=246&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnl.media.rbth.ru%2Fweb%2Fes-rbth%2Fimages%2F2015-02%2Fbig%2Fdoquijote468.jpg&cfs=1&upscale=1&sx=0&sy=0&sw=468&sh=245" width="320" /></a></div>
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For readers of this blog who don't read Spanish here is my attempt to <a href="http://es.rbth.com/cultura/2015/02/20/serguei_eisenstein_en_el_papel_de_don_quijote_47577.html">summarize an interview with Naum Kleiman by Tatiana Pigiarova published here</a>. Tatiana describes how in the rooms where Eisenstein's widow lived after the death of Russia's greatest film director amid the personal objects of Eisenstein - the Bauhaus furniture and the Mexican carpets can be spotted the figure of Eisenstein dressed up as Don Quijote mounted upon a movie camera which stands in for Rocinante.<br />
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Eisenstein's interest in Spain was multi-faceted. In his memoirs he spoke of Meyerhold's production of Calderon de la Barca's play <b>El Principe Constante </b>(The Constant Prince), the Spanish Baroque of Picasso and El Greco which was more of an inspiration to him than Italian Baroque- in fact he would write an article entitled <i>El Greco and Film. </i>Besides all this there was a script for a film entitled <i>Spain </i>set in Spain during the Civil War.<br />
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The puppet figure of Eisenstein as Don Quijote which was made by some artists for the Eisenstein Museum to commemorate the fact that Eisenstein was part of a short film where he took on the role of Don Quixote during a Congress of Independent Cinema in September 1929 (the first film festival in history). The avant-garde filmmakers from all of Europe (as well as from America and Japan) met in Switzerland at the Sarraz Castle invited by Helene de Mandrot, the owner of the castle and an art enthusiast. Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse were in Germany at the time waiting for their visas to get to Hollywood and decided to join the other film-makers there. So as well as the future <i>General Line</i> (or <i>The Old and the New</i>) Bunuel's <i>Le Chien d'Andalou </i>were projected. <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Bunuel himself was expected but didn't turn up. And between jokes and discussions the participants decided to shoot a film at the festival. The idea for the film was inspired by Eisenstein and Hans Richter: the struggle between the independents and the 'great names'.</span><i style="line-height: 20px;"> </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; line-height: 20px;">They were aided by the French critic and author of a book on Eisenstein, Leon Moussinac (dressed as Artagnan) and Jean-George Auriol, the editor of the <i>Revue du Cinema</i> who, using typewriters at the Congress as machine guns launched an attack behind banners made from journals. These two quickly developed the script of this work which entered cinematic history as <i>The Storming of La Sarraz</i> and was also directed by these critics. Tisse' filmed it with his camera and the castle stuffed with medieval relics acted as the set. Madamoiselle Bouissounouse from the <i>Revue du Cinema</i> with a white dress and reels of film around her bust and fastened by chains to the castle was to incarnate Independent Cinema. Her defender, the caballero Don Quixote (interpreted by Eisenstein) carried his medieval armour, helmet and lance and mounted upon Rocinante, his trustworthy movie camera.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">Independent Cinema was to defeat 'Commercial Cinema' impersonated by the Japanese Moitiro Tsutji who was to commit harakiri. Eisenstein recalled that the castle owner was to remember both him and Tisse with fond memories and would repeat to herself a refrain "Ah those Bolsheviks, those Bolsheviks, the only real gentlemen".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">Enough proof suggests that this film did exist at one point with certain images having been preserved by the Cinema Museum. Photograms of Jean-George Auriol with his typewriter-machine guns, of Leon Moussinac dressed up as Artganan and Eisenstein in medieval dress playing Don Quixote still exist. It's thought that the film was taken by Hand Richter to London to develop and edit and that possibly it was lost in the train or was confiscated by customs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">The story of Eisenstein and Don Quixote didn't stop there and in fact Eisenstein had been approached by Feodor Schialapin to make an adaptation of Cervantes novel. However this project was to be realised not by the Soviet director but by Pabst (though still with Schialapin in the main role).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">Eisenstein is still present in the film of <i>Don Quixote </i>that was eventually adapted by Grigory Kozintsev in 1957 through the influence of the 19th century caricaturist and painter Honore Daumier. Eisenstein's wife Pera Atasheva was to donate to Kozintsev several books and reproductions of Daumier which had belonged to Eisenstein. One such reproduction was to hang in Kozintsev's office and through Eisenstein would influence the aesthetic of Kozintsev's 1957 film adaptation of Cervantes' novel. (Eisenstein's script <i>Spain</i> also found its way into his film <i>Alexander Nevski</i>). </span></div>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-36071931139950316102015-01-22T03:24:00.001-08:002015-01-22T03:24:18.441-08:002morrow/Завтра- a rare oasis of hope for the independent Russian film world.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://st2.kinohod.ru/o/7b/6a/7b6a63ee-c769-450e-bf43-2d6987d98c10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://st2.kinohod.ru/o/7b/6a/7b6a63ee-c769-450e-bf43-2d6987d98c10.jpg" height="320" width="305" /></a></div>
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One of Russia's most interesting and original film festivals is being held this week at the Museum of Moscow and the Centre of Documentary Film. Like many of the more creative festivals in Russia it has been deprived of public funding relying instead on a<a href="http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-organizers-of-2morrowzavtra-festival-ask-for-support-in-an-open-letter/"> crowdfunding campaign to survive</a>. Founded by the late film director Ivan Dykhovichny in 2007, the festival has been run by his widow Olga Dykhovichnaya since his death in 2009. It is one of the rare chances to watch a wide range of art house films that are rarely shown in Russian cinemas anymore. If the larger festivals in Russia (such as the annual Moscow International Film Festival) attempt to reach an audience for what they call the 'art mainstream', this festival is much more daring in its programming presenting viewers with a chance of seeing more rarely noted films as well as films that have won major prizes in all the major international film festivals but which no longer get distribution in a Russian market steadily closing itself to everything but Hollywood and Russian national blockbusters and with a Russian cultural ministry intent on uprooting and destroying cultural originality in any and every way it can. In this context this film festival is a rare oasis of hope in an increasingly depressing moment for independent film in Russian subject to both political and economic strangulation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olga Dykhovichnaya, festival director of 2morrow/Завтра</td></tr>
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While 2morrow/Завтра doesn't concentrate on Russian cinema - it does have the occasional programme which do present the festival goer with an opportunity to watch some Russian (or post-Soviet) films that they would not otherwise have the opportunity to see. The <a href="http://2morrowfest.ru/category/2015/offside2015/">Offside programme</a> showcases Russian regional cinema and this year a part of this programme includes films made by students of <a href="http://2morrowfest.ru/sokurov_students/">Alexander Sokurov at the Kabardino-Balkarsky State University.</a><br />
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It has, moreover, a number of other films that should be of interest to readers of this blog including a Latvian documentary film<a href="http://2morrowfest.ru/escaping-riga/"> 'Escaping Riga'</a> comparing the fates of two famous figures who 'escaped Riga': the philosopher Isaiah Berlin and the film-maker Sergei Eisenstein and who chose very different paths and ideals. I hope to give some account of this film by David Simanis for this blog.<br />
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One of the real highlights of this festival, though, is a programme which while not connected directly to the Post-Soviet space deserves a special mention. One of the most interesting film curators operating in Russia today, Kirill Adibekov, has managed to convince the Dutch Embassy to help out with bringing the films of two extraordinary Dutch filmmakers - <a href="http://2morrowfest.ru/category/2015/jvdkfvds/">Frans van der Staak and Johnan van der Keuken</a> - to the festival. Adibekov was the curator of the excellent parallel retrospective of Artur Aristaskisyan and Pedro Costa- <a href="http://www.giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2013/10/keeping-independent-cinema-alive-in.html">one of the highlights of the 2013 festival</a> and continues to delight in this festival with another highly original and quite brilliant choice. For those able to read Russian <a href="http://www.colta.ru/articles/cinema/6060">here is an interview with Adibekov</a> giving us an insight as to why this occasion to see films by these two Dutch film-makers is such a unique one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Film curator Kirill Adibekov</td></tr>
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(<i>Some reviews of the films at this festival will appear here in coming days</i>).giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-16022640053947286532015-01-03T03:40:00.000-08:002015-01-03T03:40:11.087-08:00Articles published elsewhere: (1) On Lyubov Arkus's Anton's Right Here<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i>This article was <a href="http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/833/antons-right-here-documentary">originally published for the Calvert Journal on April 30, 2013</a></i><br />
<i>.</i><br />
A film critic turned director may have been a common feature
in the 1960s French New Wave but in contemporary Russia the case of Liubov
Arkus is somewhat unique. One of Russia’s most established critics for the leading
film journal Séance, Arkus has managed to create a new form of social
documentary<i> </i>in Anton’s Right Here<i> </i>and by doing so she brings Dziga Vertov’s
vision of the camera as an instrument of liberation one step closer to
realization. Arkus explained that she made the film not thinking about it as a
documentary and related to the protagonists not as documentary subjects but “as
people who were close to me”. Arkus met Anton Kharitonov, a young autistic boy,
after reading his text People<i>- </i>part
of a compilation of writings by autistic children that she discovered when
editing a copy of Séance. Anton and his family were to become close friends of
the whole Séance collective. The film would arise more out of chance and
necessity than design taking over four years to complete. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Arkus makes no attempt to whitewash the harsh reality for
Anton and other autistic children in Russia in the film and her narration of
Anton’s Dantesque trip through the hell of institutions all too ready to
abandon the weak and vulnerable is as powerful an indictment as there could
conceivably be. In a scene where Anton’s
choices become so bleak Arkus is constrained to abduct Anton from one
institution thus precariously stepping beyond the boundaries which
documentarists normally permit themselves.
Her film, though, is not dominated by this sense of bleakness and
indignation and avoids pointing moralistic fingers at anyone in particular. The
transformation of his father’s attitude towards Anton inspired by his viewing
of footage from this film is a masterly scene in which the film reflects on the
cameras powers to transform reality. Arkus also intervenes in the film with her
personal tale of suffering abandonment as child of a victim of repression and
transforming once again the relations between documentarist and subject once
more steps into precarious territory. However, in this way Anton’s condition
becomes shared and universalized bringing us back to that central and
unresolved theme of 1960s cinema – the theme of communicability present in
films of auteur filmmakers such as Antonioni, Herzog and the Soviet filmmaker
Khutsiev.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This film, however, does not take the rather well-worn route
of the old-style social documentary in which the director observes and retells
the life of the protagonist in order simply to generate either indignation or
pity. Indeed such a subject matter confronts the documentary film-maker with a
highly significant ethical dilemma. Sergei Dvortsevoy, one of the great
documentary film-makers of the early 1990s, would eventually move into feature
films because, in his words, “the worse it is for the subject of the
documentary, the better it is for the film maker”. Arkus, however, resolved
this dilemma and directed a film confounding many of the accepted rules of
documentary film making.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was one of Russia’s most innovative documentary helmers,
Alexander Rastorguev, who helped Arkus understand the necessity of playing by
different rules. In 2008 Arkus published Rastorguev’s “Natural Cinema”
manifesto in Séance. Here he claimed that documentary cinema had died and could
only regain meaning when film became what he called “ontological action”, “reaching
the core of suffering transforming life”.
The ideas in Rastorguev’s manifesto
“impressed me enormously” Arkus told me in an interview in early January. Two
other people were instrumental in helping Arkus realize this vision of “natural
cinema”:- one was the cameraman, Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev, and the other was
Anton himself who, in the words of film scholar Yuri Tsivian, had almost become
Arkus’s co-director (an opinion that Arkus shared).<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cameraman Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev</td></tr>
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Arkus explained how it was Alisher who took on the role of
the helmer at the start of the shooting process while she was “learning from
him”, given that it was her first film. At the beginning she “didn’t even look
into the viewfinder”, but by the final two shooting periods she was firmly in
the director’s seat. For Arkus, Alisher
had the ability to portray “the very core of the human being rather than simply
the human face or profile”- an ability which, Khamidkhodzhaev states, was
influenced by the cinema of Sokurov and Pasolini.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Arkus explained the unique role of Anton in the film-making
process: “it was very much his relationship to the world and to others- to his
mother and me – and his strength which defined the film and powerfully drove
the plot of the film forward. One should not forget either his very strong
charisma as well as his (what Arkus calls) ‘cinegenia’”. His refusal to accept
less than genuine love from those around him be they his father or the carers in
the, albeit very liberal and westernised, Svetlana institution, surely manifest
his extraordinary willpower. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The protagonists, Arkus explained “became documentary
subjects only at the editing stage when after shooting an immense amount of
material it was necessary to develop a clear plot for the film”. The most
difficult stage of the film, for Arkus, was the editing process. Five hundred
hours of material had been shot and although it was shot in an ‘observational’
style, it was edited like a novel (according to her “a novel written before the
modernist period and in the post-modernist vein”). This divergence between the
shooting process and the composition of the storyline comprised the greatest
difficulty for her. “Numerous options were made before I came to the difficult
decision to tell the story in the first person”. In many ways, too, the camera had become
Anton’s substitute for the pen with which he could write a new text about
himself. The last scene where Anton is given the camera to shoot the final shot
makes this explicit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This film has something very rare and powerful to say by tying
autism and cinema together as equally being wrapped up in a struggle to
communicate the incommunicable. This film has transformed social documentary as
a genre here with the aesthetic and the ethical working symbiotically, bringing
into question clear distinctions between the observed and observer, the director
and protagonist while the camera loses its cold distance becoming an instrument
for profound reflection, communication and even liberation. Anton’s Right Here<i> </i>may not be a film that vaunts its
formal experimentation in the way that some of the films of Kossakovsky (one of
Russia’s most extraordinary documentarists) do but it does manage to display
new territories of human nature hitherto only partially revealed. <o:p></o:p></div>
giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-42794831442197988822015-01-03T02:43:00.000-08:002015-01-03T02:43:19.920-08:00Reflections on 2014 in the world of film and Renaming the blog. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.docudays.org.ua/storage/2014/films/comp/life/crepuscule_main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.docudays.org.ua/storage/2014/films/comp/life/crepuscule_main.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A still from Valentyn Vasyanovych's <i>Crepuscule</i> one of the films that captured the potential of a revival of film in the post-Soviet space.</td></tr>
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When I first started this blog over five years ago I gave little real thought to the title of the blog but this year I have finally decided to change it. Back in 2009 my blog was nothing more than a jotting down of a personal diary of my film going as well as some things I had been reading on film (and the title was something I had thought up on the spur of the moment). Since so many of my favourite films and filmmakers discovered in Moscow can not in any way be described as Russian- to name but a few Sergei Parajanov, Otar Ioselliani, Kira Muratova, Aleksandr Dovzhenko - I thought it better to extend this blog explicitly to the whole of the former Soviet space (and even occasionally beyond). An oversight in 2009 is much less defensible in 2015. How to write, for example, about Ukrainian films in a blog on 'Russian film' without falling into justifiable accusations of a form of (post) colonial prejudice? One more consideration of this renaming is that I hope to extend the scope of this blog to include articles on other visual arts too (and also to literature, music and even philosophy).It's rather difficult to find an all-encompassing term but post-Soviet tries in as many ways as possible to encompass both history and the present.<br />
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2014 hasn't been a particularly active year for me in so far as film-going has been concerned. I only managed the Moscow and Odessa Film Festivals (and missed the Art Doc Fest and much else besides). Living in Russia in the winter and early spring and then in the summer gave me a sense of the atmosphere of this 'infernal year'. Travelling from Moscow to Odessa in July and spending ten days in that city also gave me a very brief chance to attempt to gauge the atmosphere in that city during the period both before and after the downing of the Malaysian airline.<br />
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There is no easy way of describing the changes in the Russian cinema world (it would be far more difficult to speak of other cinematic worlds in the post-Soviet space) in 2014.Some of the posts published here in 2014 have spoken of the stances of some of those in the film world with regard to the Ukraine. A mixture of <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2014/03/reply-to-ukrainian-appeal-by-people-in.html">solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues</a>, followed by <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/russian-cultures-war-of-signatures/496211.html">a pro-Putin stance from others</a>, with even some support for the Russian state <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/AntiPutin-artists-Uturn-over-Crimea/32762http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/AntiPutin-artists-Uturn-over-Crimea/32762">from some very unlikely quarters</a>. But then even in Ukraine there was not any simple narrative. Odessa at the time of the film festival was still in the midst of patriotic fervour (with audiences standing to attention twice during scenes where Ukraine's hymn was heard in Sergei Loznitsa's <i>Maidan</i>) and yet the words that <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.ru/2014/07/kira-muratova-on-maidan-and-ukrainian.html">Kira Muratova spoke to Anton Dolin</a> were far more measured with a restrained sadness at how things had gone.<br />
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Russia really does seem to be experiencing the howling winds of winter. Returning to Moscow last week I learned of the events surrounding a showing of a documentary film 'Stronger than arms'. Although there was an audience of only about fifteen at the premises of teatr.doc (and three or four of this audience reportedly turned out to be from the security services). After about a minute into the showing a whole ensemble of characters from different state and municipal 'services' would turn up including police, bomb disposal officers, fire and other emergency services, plain clothes security personnel, municipal officers and even personnel from the Ministry of Culture. The whole building was to be evacuated only after 45 minutes (it was even rumoured that security and Mincult officials were watching the film in the meantime while they had evicted the film goers to the streets 'cordially inviting' them for a trip to the police station. Organisers were summonsed and interrogated the next day at the Ministry of Culture and the audience after eviction found themselves harassed by a woman journalist from the state NTV channel who had turned up with all the officials asking them what they thought of the film that they were prevented from watching. A tragic farce of what happens when you watch the 'wrong kind of documentary' in Russia at the end of 2014. Here is a sample of that night's events that was captured on camera:<br />
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Of the events that I missed were this years Art Doc Fest which is another subject in its own right given that the Minister of Culture stated that this festival - widely seen as the best documentary film festival in the whole of Russia - would no longer be receiving any public funding given the anti-governmental statements of the its director, Vitaly Mansky. Another indication that the tightening of the screws in the Russian cultural sphere is going full speed ahead.<br />
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Perhaps the biggest scandal of the year is that which has happened around the Cinema Museum. One of Russia's and the world's most respected film scholars, Naum Kleiman, and his professional team were evicted by Kremlin loyalists in an attempt to finally destroy any remaining hopes of the resurrection of one of the most important institutions in Russian cinema today. Conservative nationalism in this sphere has done its utmost to sever all ties to the outside world in a way that reeks of late Stalinist autarky in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The story of the Scientific Research Institute of Cinematic Art led by Nikolai Izvolov has been less widely reported but is yet another indication that Medinsky and his cronies are launching a full onslaught on cinematic memory to eviscerate anything not fulfilling his ideological (conservative nationalism) goals. In terminology so beloved of these ideologues one feels at times to be confronting some form of cultural genocide (meted out by those very figures intent on proudly acclaiming themselves as defenders of Russian culture. All the Medinskyites seem to want to offer is a trash Hollywood-style version of national cinema with a taste of Russian revanchist ideology.<br />
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Of course 2014 has not been only this - the crop of films that have been released or seen at Russian and international film festivals have thankfully been impressive. Films by Zvyagintsev, Konchalovsky, Tverdovsky, Kott, Bychkova, Meshchaninova, Nikonova, and even Gai Germanika and Bykov deserve notice from the international film world. Yet is this the last of Russia's "relatively good years" in film as <a href="http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2623878">Andrey Plakhov argued in a recent newspaper article</a>? Time will tell but it certainly feels a rather daring task to utter much optimism. Whether in other countries of the post-Soviet space this picture is a different one is hard to tell. From the little I have seen of Ukrainian cinema the picture is a mixed one but it certainly does have some very promising titles, especially in the guise of Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's masterpiece <i>The Tribe </i>as well as Sergei Loznitsa's <i>Maidan. </i>Following in the wake of Kira Muratova's 2013 <i>Eternal Homecoming </i>these two and many more less talked about films such as the rural documentary <i>Crespuscule</i> by Valentyn Vasyanovych as well as Viktoria Trofimenko's <i>Brothers: The Final Confession</i> do suggest that Ukrainian film has some kind of hopeful future. One of the Ukrainian film-makers most to look out for- Maryna Vroda- seems to have been relatively silent for some time although she has come back this year with another short film entitled <i>Snails </i>shown at the Molodist Film festival in Kiev.<br />
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Coming back, however, to considerations of the present moment of relations between Ukraine and Russia and their respective film worlds there is no symbol more scandalous than the imprisonment of Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov in a Russian prison. Increasingly forgotten by the media he faces many years in jail. It is on this note I wish to end this article with the wistful conclusion that it is increasingly hard to 'enjoy' film in this part of the world while one of its more promising practitioners is languishing in prison facing what are clearly trumped up charges.<br />
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<i>A longer article on reflections on recent events in Russian film will hopefully be published in another venue early in 2015.</i>giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-63791380173670631412014-11-05T18:38:00.001-08:002017-12-24T09:46:03.030-08:00Memories of the Cinema Museum: Boris Nelepo on what Naum Kleiman and his team means to us. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Every few months there seems to be a new twist in the story surrounding Russia's Cinema Museum- and yet each time it seems that the obscenity of the story appears to take on a new level. Going through the details of what has been happening brings on a feeling of nausea. There are just too many reasons to list why, when the history of Russian cinema in the post-Soviet period will be written in decades from now, one will wrack one's head with wonder (and for those of us who lived in this time, with shame) at how Russia's cinematic place in the world had been hampered, trampled on by cultural vandals and bureaucrats and those who did their bidding. Also in the cinema history books there will appear the names of those who heroically, almost single-handedly, helped create something in spite of this. That there were glimmers of a new wave in Russian cinema associated with, for example, Zviagintsev amongst others is due to that period prior to 2005 when there was a functioning Cinema Museum near the metro stop of Krasnopresnenskaya (and figures like Zviagintsev were constant visitors). Musei Kino's role of fomenting a cultural revolution in the heads of many was proving risky. One is almost driven insane with rage upon hearing pundits stating that the Cinema Museum was only for the intelligentsia. I have never experienced crowds in Russian cinemas such as I experienced in Krasnospresnenskaya the years before Musei Kino was closed. Once the main hall was so packed that I was forced to stand a few inches from the screen because there was simply no room elsewhere (and this was to see a film that was shown many times at the Museum). My attention was drawn today to a text by one of Russia's finest young film critics, </i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Boris Nelepo</span>.</b><i> Nelepo doesn't write so much about the current situation of the Cinema Museum but gives an excellent account of what the Museum and Naum's team really signified for many thousands of Moscovites and visitors to the city. </i><br />
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<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">A hand reaches out to another hand. A shot from Godard’s Nouvelle Vague. Godard is inseparable in my memory from the place where I first saw this film. When Musei Kino was closed I had only begun to go there, I was sixteen. From that moment, every time I found myself in a new city the first thing I did was try to find the local cinemateque so as to experience once again those same emotions. In many cities there is not any cinemateque but Moscow is the only place in the world where an authentic Cinema Museum worked for many years and then was liquidated.</span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Naum Kleiman belongs to a special type of person, one can count them on the fingers of one's hand. Henri Langlois, Jonas Mekas, Joao Benard da Costa. Without them there would have been no cinematography. This is no exaggeration: when Henri Langlois founded the Cinemateque Francaise, few people understood that cinematography was an art form and that it requires preserving. Even at that time an immense number of films had been lost which we can only now know from people’s memories or from archival annotations. Ghost films.</span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Our Museum of Cinema was one of the best in the world. Again I am not exaggerating: the programmes which Naum Kleiman designed in the 1990s are today difficult to imagine even in New York or Paris. Kleiman and Maxim Pavlov (without whose professionalism and erudition a Cinema Museum would be impossible) even after what seemed to be its destruction demonstrated to us an unique lesson in their irreconcialability to this fact. In those nine years in which the Museum has been deprived of its own home it has undertaken more retrospectives than any national institution and these are always the most interesting, unexpected and thrilling programmes. They haven’t given up. And, alas, all of us without exception are guilty because we haven’t shown the solidarity, we haven’t shown any corresponding daring on our part. It has been precisely this experience of solidarity which could have finally been the trigger for that political will which is necessary to avert catastrophe. For in Russia in the noughties each and every year there appeared (and then quickly disappeared) ambitious cultural projects and festivals whose single budget of any of them would have been sufficient to preserve a sheltered life for the Cinema Museum. Precious time has been lost and this means that one must lose no more time. It is necessary to fight.</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><b>Art of the present and of the future is impossible without that of the past. A Museum of Cinema is a take-off point for the existence of a national cinema. If there is no museum then not a single festival or movie theatre will have any meaning without it. Without a Cinema Museum Russia simply will no longer be on the cinematic map of the world. It will become a ghost country for film. </b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The original Russian can be found here:</span><a href="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fseance.ru%2Fblog%2Fesse%2Fnelepo_mk%2F&h=5AQHVa_7J&enc=AZPAE_NzwX2GjYhq-AKfMx4jtHeN4bgk67Hzo1caEqxoR_YqAlN1LNjIMmPSjH37QI3LnUkNM4DdKW20kj9EFRwMQ18fu4DLO3u2DfrUQIg3Czdxql2TilpBdWPJ49exVw4d3-0s8bpheV2WZHMopHcDawrKxkveigyKxKuKsEB1PQ&s=1" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://seance.ru/blog/esse/nelepo_mk/</a> </span></span><br />
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<i>Many thanks to Boris Nelepo for agreeing to the publication of this piece by him.</i><br />
<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-21415355927544124822014-09-21T08:20:00.000-07:002017-06-02T03:34:20.534-07:00London City Symphony Film to take Vertov and Rodchenko into Twenty First Century<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What promises to be a striking new film entitled <i>London Symphony</i> in an 'old genre' (the city symphony film) is the object of another of the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/760643006/london-symphony">crowd funding</a> reports that I'm blogging about this month. While it doesn't have a Russian theme, it certainly is trying to restore some of the stylistic tropes of the great masterpieces of early Soviet cinema including the film that topped the <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs">Sight and Sound poll for Best Documentaries of all Time</a>, namely Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera, and bring them back in the early twenty first century. Of course the city symphony film was never just a Soviet phenomenon and Charles Sheeler's & Paul Strand's 1921 film <i>Manhatta </i>is regarded as one of the earliest examples and Walter Ruttmann's B<i>erlin: Symphony of a Metropolis</i> film from 1927 are among the important stages which led to the Vertov masterpiece. However, the kind of mutual transnational influences at play in the forging of such a genre can not be ignored: Ruttmann's film is certainly unthinkable without the developments in Soviet montage and, of course, the influences were never entirely in one direction. This city symphony genre (the denomination inspired by Rutthmann's film title and his idea to <b>"</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><b>create a symphonic film out of the millions of energies that comprise the life of a big city"</b>)</span> while highly regarded by film scholars and historians seemed to have been buried. However, an independent film-maker, <a href="http://www.alexbarrett.net/">Alex Barrett</a> whose films have been shown and awarded at many international film festivals has decided to return to this genre inspired in turn by what seems to have been a revival in interest in aspects of 1920's Soviet culture as a whole. Vertov may be the most notable name but it seems quite clear that Rodchenko whose photographs and other art work have been<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/rodchenkos-revolution-a-socialist-with-true-vision-767595.html"> shown at a number of UK exhibitions in recent years</a> also inspires the look of some of the photographs and stills from an early short film which are set to inspire the film.<br />
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Rodchenko, of course, worked as artistic director on one of Boris Barnet's lesser known and lesser seen films <i>Moscow in October</i> and so as well as being probably the most well-known photographer of the Soviet Twenties was a force in Soviet cinema in more ways than one (he also, of course, designed some of the most well-known film posters of the period).<br />
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So while the film in question will have a UK theme it will undoubtedly have 'Soviet' roots (how else to describe Vertov, perhaps one of the many transnational artists who can not be reduced to the national denominations of these post-Soviet times). It can only be hoped that like other crowd funding campaigns that I have mentioned in previous posts <a href="http://www.giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/isolation-in-siberian-taiga-forest-in.html">here</a> and <a href="http://giuvivrussianfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/parajanovs-venetian-links-to-be.html">here</a> this particular campaign will gain the attention and support that it deserves. A campaign video is available <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDAml9O0YcA&feature=youtu.be">here</a> which describes many of the intentions.<br />
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As well as Alex Barrett whose previous film <i><a href="http://www.lifejustisfilm.com/">Life Just Is</a> </i>has been described by a Sight and Sound contributor, Brad Stevens, as "one of the most promising debuts in contemporary cinema" there is a strong team. The producer, Katherine Round, is a founder of a leading documentary organization Doc heads and has established <a href="http://literallyfilms.co.uk/">Literally Films</a> to produce documentaries which try to push boundaries. The screenwriter Rahim Moledina has made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ue5t8pVbos">his own short films </a> and his script <i>Iqbal's Shoes</i> has been selected for<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/"> BBC Writersroom</a> scriptroom 2013 from 3000 scripts. <a href="http://www.jamesmcwilliam.com/">James McWilliam</a> is the composer and has had a long career in working in film and has worked with some of the leading film composers. The cinematpgrapher will be Peter Harmer.<br />
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Some idea of the film can be glimpsed from a short film that Barrett and Moledina made on Hungerford Bridge and gives a flavour of the inspiring aesthetics of the film:<br />
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Once again the crowdfunding link is here and it will be running until the middle of October. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/760643006/london-symphony and the director can be contacted at alex@alexbarrett.net <br />
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(Like the film The Forest In Me I hope to be reporting on the future development of these projects and, in this case, speaking with the director in more detail on the Russian or Soviet film influences on his film).<br />
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Update: Below is the UK trailer just released for its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival and will be in competition for the Michael Powell Award for the Best British Film and will have two prss and industry screenings and two public screenings at the festival. More information about the film can be found here: <span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15.3333px; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.londonsymphfilm.com/press.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15.3333px; text-align: justify;" target="_blank">http://www.londonsymphfilm.com<wbr></wbr>/press.htm</a></span><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pENDHytRIWI/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pENDHytRIWI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3737915053829470554.post-86551085854032175462014-09-12T08:23:00.002-07:002014-09-16T07:39:57.058-07:00Isolation in the Siberian Taiga: The Forest In Me by Rebecca Marshall. <i>There are a whole crop of crowd funding projects which are linked in some way or other to Russia and Russian themes. I'll be exploring and writing on a number of them this month. Some are filmed by UK film-makers in Russia, others are influenced by aspects of Russian or Soviet film-making and others are Russian film projects. I am hoping to post a series of blogs this month on those films which promise to be some of the most interesting projects.</i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>70-year old Agafya Likova who has spent her whole life in isolation in the taiga of the Kemerovo region</i></td></tr>
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The link to the crowd-funding project for <i>The Forest in Me</i> can be found here: <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-forest-in-me">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-forest-in-me</a><br />
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I'm starting off with Rebecca Marshall's <i>The Forest In Me </i>poroject which promises to explore an extraordinary story of an isolated family (and then of a single survivor) who lived so deep in the Siberian taiga that for decades there was literally no contact with the outside world (and even when contact was made the heroine of the film remained in her isolated location rather than relocate).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rebecca Marshall, the director of the Forest In Me.</i></td></tr>
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Rebecca Marshall will attempt to follow the story of Agafya Lykofa who was born in 1943. Until 1978 they lived in complete isolation from the outside world and were even unaware of the Second World War. Agafya's parents had taken the extreme step of complete internal exile in 1936 after being persecuted for his religious beliefs as an Old Believer. Agafya and a brother were born later and were condemned to battle the harsh winters on their own in a deeply remote part of the Kemerovo region in Western Siberia. A particularly harsh winter had already taken the life of their mother through starvation when in 1978 on a helicopter sortie, a group of geologists spotted a piece of cultivated land which lead to their first visit from the outside world. Shortly after their visit Agafya's three brothers died and Agafya lived alone with her father who also died a decade later. Nonetheless, Agafya still chose isolation in spite of the minus 65 degrees Fahrenheit winters that are sometimes registered in this part of the Kemerovo region.<br />
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Marshall intends to explore the life of Agafya not merely through her circumstances but she also intends to explore Agafya's imagination, her dreams and visions through a collection of drawings that Agafya has made to record her own life. The film-maker compares her own personal need to keep records of all aspects of her life linking her to her own past with Agafya's own efforts in preserving her own memory through drawings that she makes. Interestingly the film aims to use Agafya's drawings as a starting point for sections of charcoal animation which will then appear in the film (the animated sequences will be designed by Ana Caro who is known for her work in <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/61837132">The Magnificent Lion Boy</a> . </i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://rebeccaemarshall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ana-caro-image2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://rebeccaemarshall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ana-caro-image2.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Art work by Ana Caro for the film, the animator of The Forest in Me. </i></td></tr>
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Marshall's film is based on a hope that small details of Agafya's life may lead to an understanding of one another and it also will try to answer the question of why individuals feel the need and desire to be understood as individuals. Also Agafya's rejection of integration with the outside world will be an opportunity to explore how her sense of time, faith and identity in her isolation contrast with the film-maker's own experiences in the world of mass communication.<br />
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<a href="https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/820250/files/20140829022910-Agafya-in-snow-LS.jpg?1409304550" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/820250/files/20140829022910-Agafya-in-snow-LS.jpg?1409304550" width="320" /></a></div>
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Rebecca Marshall's <a href="https://vimeo.com/rebeccaemarshall/videos">unique experimental style</a> has been taken note of at film festivals worldwide including such impressive international festivals as Locarno and Creteil. She allows her stories of female characters to visually unfold. This next film of hers aims to pursue an aesthetic close to that of Bela Tarr's film-making while searching to keep the balance between observation and dialogue that Werner Herzog creates in his films. The film-making team is also very impressive. The collaboration of Ana Caro in animated sequences has been mentioned. The soundtrack promises to be a very impressive one given the inclusion of a Russian choir and the pure and wild violin playing of the godfather of anti-folk and former member of Clash, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymon_Dogg">Tymon Dogg</a>. The production team also includes some well-known names in the documentary film world including <a href="http://www.nomadfilms.ca/bio%20Mark.html">Mark Johnston</a> from <a href="http://www.nomadfilms.ca/index2.html">Nomad Films</a>, Nicole Stott from Passion Pictures and Vasilis Chrysanthopolous (a producer with Plays2Place, a new emerging company in the Greek film industry whose recent projects have included <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jun/19/miss-violence-review-evil-and-greek-anguish" style="font-style: italic;">Miss Violence.</a>)<br />
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Here is the crowd-funding link:<br />
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<a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-forest-in-me">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-forest-in-me</a><br />
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A fund raising video is available on <a href="https://vimeo.com/104669316">Vimeo here</a>.<br />
<br />giuvivrussianfilmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11779445150205481262noreply@blogger.com0