A 1932 masterpiece was shown at the Archive Film Festival

The II International Festival of Archival Films has ended in Moscow. For many years it was held at the State Film Fund in Beliy Stolby, it was a private event and was of an educational nature. Its visitors were film critics and several interested directors – from Marlen Khutsiev to Andrey Zvyagintsev. Ordinary viewers could see film masterpieces only at one-time screenings in Moscow.

Now the old cinema is shown to a wide audience, although this is a conditional concept, since the occupancy of the halls is not so great. The circle of fans of cinema rarities is narrow. The screenings were preceded by performances by the brilliant film historians Naum Kleiman and Yevgeny Margolit, their young colleagues, Irina Zubatenko, curator of the documentary funds of the Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve. Many films were shown from film and accompanied by live music.

The program “Cinema of Central Asia”, which was supervised by Yevgeny Margolit, presented the full version of the film “Tashkent – a city of bread” sent from Uzbekistan by Shukhrat Abbasov based on the script by Andrei Konchalovsky, Alexander Neverov and Andrei Tarkovsky. Its premiere took place in 1968.

And completed a series of shows “The Death of Otrar” in 1991 – the debut work of a student of Sergei Solovyov at VGIK Ardak Amirkulov. The script was written by Alexei German Sr. and his wife Svetlana Karmalita at the suggestion of the Kazakh side. At that moment, “My friend Ivan Lapshin” was already finished and sent to the shelf, and Herman himself was deprived of the opportunity of at least some kind of income.

Many forgotten films, as well as those that were not appreciated in their time, are now perceived as absolute masterpieces. Several archival finds from the beginning of the last century were presented at the festival – Albert Capellani’s Shiva Dancer and three films featuring the Russian-Italian diva Diana Karenne. They were considered lost. They were discovered and attributed by the senior art critic of the State Film Fund Tamara Shvedyuk.

With the support of the George Eastman Museum, the premiere of the pre-revolutionary film “1812” was held. The American distribution version received by Gosfilmofond as part of the exchange differs from the Russian one.

What has always surprised the screenings of Gosfilmofond’s masterpieces is their hit in today’s time, the emerging parallels. And now the silent film of 1932 “Graceful Life” by the founder of the Soviet everyday comedy Boris Yurtsev makes a strong impression.

This is the only film by the director that has come down to us. Yurtsev is a student of Sergei Eisenstein. He played the Red Clown and Glumov’s mother in his teacher’s production of “Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man”, starred in his “Strike”. Boris Yurtsev directed several films, including Alena’s Love, where Lyubov Orlova made her debut.

In the mid-30s, he was denounced to Kolyma after an unsuccessful joke about Yagoda. After his release, he settled in Ashgabat. In 1941, he made his last film, Stebels in the Sky, starring Mark Bernes.

In The Graceful Life, Boris Tenin, a real handsome man, a Hollywood hero, starred as the English sailor Fred. The life of a British sailor is difficult – capitalism is shown in all its unsightly glory. These are the postulates of propaganda cinema.

Fred becomes unemployed after missing his flight. But he will be unspeakably lucky, and he will find a job on board a Soviet ship, where he will be called Fedya. At that moment, when he and his new friend Okhromenko are walking around Odessa, exercises begin, a rehearsal of a gas attack is underway. It looks creepy. Fred is carried away on a stretcher to a gas shelter, and once again he is late for the ship. However, everything is going well, and Fred ends up at Dneprostroy.

Good Soviet people will not let a man go to waste. They will always come to the rescue. Fred will be saved by a simple Russian traffic controller Marusya, played by Olga Zhizneva. Without her, Fred would have become a victim of a thief.

Marusya fed the British sailor bagels, taught him to drink hot tea from a saucer, and put him to bed. But it is not customary to dissolve hands in the USSR, it is not permissible to touch an honest Soviet girl.

This Fred will not learn immediately. But he will understand all the advantages of the Soviet way of life. If His Majesty’s fleet needs slaves, not sailors, then in the Soviet Union a working person is held in high esteem.

Marusya will decide to connect her fate with Fred. Together they will go to the Dneprostroy. True, the girl’s personal file will be considered by higher comrades, because if “every policeman gets married, who will regulate the traffic?”

It is curious that not the original version of the silent picture has come down to us, but partially voiced, with several cues, which surprises the inexperienced viewer.

The festival ended with a screening of a restored version of Gleb Panfilov’s “Beginning”, filmed in 1970.