Alexey Fedorchenko will shoot “Raccoon City” in two Colombian cities that he has not seen before

I immediately remembered The Chosen Ones by Sergei Solovyov – perhaps the only Russian film shot in Colombia. Filming of the “Raccoon City” has so far started in Yekaterinburg. It would seem that winter is on the nose, snow fell in the Urals, but out of nowhere a bright butterfly flew in and sat on the director’s face. Some kind of fierce mockumentary – Fedorchenko’s favorite genre, meaning pseudo-documentary cinema. “Raccoon City” Alexey will complete his incredible trilogy, started by “First on the Moon” and “Big Snakes of Ulli-Kale”.

The script was written by Alexei Fedorchenko back in 2008 together with a writer and playwright from Kazan Denis Osokin. Together they worked on the paintings “Heavenly Wives of the Meadow Mari”, “Oatmeal”, “Angels of the Revolution”. “Raccoon City” will be filmed in Yekaterinburg and Colombia, although France and Germany were also initially considered, but the pandemic ruined all plans.

The first film of the trilogy tells that the Russians, even before the Great Patriotic War, created a space rocket, prepared a flight to the moon. The picture received an award at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 as the best documentary, which was a phenomenal blunder. The professional cinematographers who were members of the jury took everything at face value and rated the feature film as non-fiction. The second film of the trilogy “Big snakes of Ulli-Kale” is dedicated to the relationship between the peoples of Russia and the Caucasus. Each of the paintings, according to Fedorchenko, is an independent work, but they can be viewed separately. However, only three films together form a great story that lifts the veil of secrets of the 20th century.

One of the mysteries that worries filmmakers is the existence of Hitler’s secret base in Antarctica, which no expedition has discovered. There is a version that it was blown up after, having crashed, the command of the Third Reich left it. But was Hitler there? Without refueling, he would not have made it there. And if you do it, then, then, you will declassify the secret movement operation. There is evidence that the construction of an underwater parking lot under the glacier began in 1939, after the German attack on Poland, submarines were placed there. It seemed quite possible to ensure the life of the city for one and a half thousand people, to conduct another preparation for the conquest of the world under the cover of ice.

About how the preparations for filming in Colombia are going on, MK asked the producer of Raccoon City Dmitry Vorobyov on the eve of his departure to an unfamiliar country. Together with Alexei Fedorchenko, he has already worked on the films “First on the Moon”, “Railway”, “Oatmeal”, “Chrono-eye”, “Heavenly Wives of the Meadow Mari”, “Angels of the Revolution”, “Anna’s War”, “Breathe”, ” Cinema of the era of change”, “Coin of the country of Malawi”, “Big snakes of Ulli-Kale”.

— Why did you decide to film Raccoon City in Colombia?

“Because the story is written about Colombia. When the script was being created, Alexei and I immediately thought about Bolivia and Colombia. South America gave the Germans the opportunity to live there. Many Nazis fled to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia after World War II and stayed there for a long time, if not forever. We will have a detective story about how a father and daughter are looking for a relative who disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s. The fact that people were taken somewhere is a real fact. They collected 500 virgins on a ship and sent them in an unknown direction, after which they disappeared. In Colombia, there will be a search for an aunt. We will try to track her down. In the second part, we will turn to no one proven, but not refuted story that Hitler built himself a bunker under the ice of Antarctica. Boats went there, scientists settled there. Perhaps the Colombian ship went there. Women were needed. According to our version, the bunker existed.

“You are going to such a distance, and certainly not to a bare place?”

– You know our permanent editor Oleg Loevsky. He told us: “I have a friend who lives in Colombia. He is Colombian, studied at VGIK. I will put you in touch with him.” So we started talking to him. He runs a film school there.

– Since he graduated from VGIK, then he knows Russian well?

– In fact of the matter. This is a big relief for us. We asked him if he could find a film company to arrange for our visit. He replied, “I will.” We have been negotiating for six months now. Colombian colleagues help us to conduct a casting, choose objects for filming. We found two suitable cities where we will shoot.

– So you are still virtually selecting objects and actors? Has anyone from the group been to Colombia?

– It is very expensive. We cannot afford this. They send us videos, photos of actors and locations from Colombia. We approve or we do not approve. All objects are pre-selected. Negotiations are conducted via videoconference. Our Colombian producer speaks only his native language. We got official permission for us to shoot in Colombia. At our request, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation turned to the consulate and the department of cinematography, from which they replied: “We really want to work together. Let the Russians come to us to shoot films.” There is also the issue of security, which will also need to be addressed somehow.

— Are there any specifics in the organization of film production in Colombia?

Until we felt it. The only peculiarity, when we start talking about the existence of such and such a place, we hear in response: “This is a dangerous place. We’d better not go there.” As a result, we will shoot in two cities: Medellin, the home of the richest drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar, and Cartagena, which is located on the Caribbean coast. We do not go to the capital of Colombia, Bogota, we only fly through it. The path is long: from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, from Moscow to Istanbul, from Istanbul to Bogotá. Between flights, you need a margin of time – not two, but four hours. You never know! God forbid the plane is late – and hello to our tickets.

– Have you ever had such a grandiose trip?

— No, although the geography was large. We filmed in Orenburg “Railway”, in North Ossetia and the Chechen Republic – “The Big Snakes of Ulli-Kale”. Aleksey Fedorchenko flew to Thailand to shoot the episode of the death of the hero played by documentary filmmaker Andrey Osipov in First on the Moon. There was a small group there – only four people, and it was necessary to shoot in fact one frame.

— And now what group will go to Colombia?

– Up to ten people – director, producer, second director, our permanent production designer Alexei Maksimov, editing director Daria Ismagulova, two actors. Director of photography Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev was going to go with us, but his child was born. A local operator with a machine and all the necessary kit will work in the picture. In Colombia, we will shoot documentary history, not global cinema. We will attach the second composition in place. Lots of unknown details. Objects are not fully selected. Actors are not fully confirmed.

– But surely everything is scheduled until December?

– Yes. We have five days of preparation in each city in order to go around everything, get to know the actors. Then about seven days of filming are planned in Medellin, moving to Cartagena, where five days of preparation are also ahead, inspection of objects, acquaintance with the actors. We have different actors and translators in two cities. We will also shoot in Cartagena for seven days. A total of 14 shooting days are planned.

How do you manage to be so free? You do what you want from an artistic point of view, you do pure art?

We bear our sacrifice in this sense. Our paintings are not commercial, we do not earn money from them. I rewatched our Big Serpents of Ulli-Kale in St. Petersburg at the Message to Man festival, and it took my breath away. We did not shoot about what is being read today. Then the situation was different. We studied the relations between Russia and the Caucasus, went back a century, did not give historical assessments, just talked about what happened.

– Since the cinema is filled with new meanings that the authors did not lay, this is evidence that it is real.

– I remembered the story of Vladimir Khotinenko. We did the film “Roy” with him somewhere in 1989. He filmed the story that the people are in revolt, and the crisis has not happened yet. And two years later, in 1991, it started. Everything collapsed, well at least there was no civil war. So here, Alexei Fedorchenko is a harbinger of what could happen, and this does not only concern Russia. Just got to the point.