British director on the shooting of the series “Trader”: learned a lot of Russian words

A young oil trader in the midst of a serious mess involving the Iraqi junta led by Saddam Hussein, as well as American and Russian intelligence agencies – the plot is promising, but not easy. Falling towers in New York, a new wave of international terrorism, the American invasion of Iraq and other global shifts in politics and economics are often interpreted differently, especially given the current realities.

Nevertheless, the creators of the series largely managed to avoid the feeling of an ideologically edited history textbook and, at least, not to divide the characters into good and bad, based on their citizenship and official position. This is probably the merit of director Anthony Waller. The British do not often shoot Russian TV series, they are unlikely to do something similar in the near future, and in this situation, the person of Mr. Waller has a very exotic flair. I would like to ask a few questions right now.

— Anthony, The Trader is definitely a show with ambition. Can we say that you tried to break some stereotypes of the spy thriller genre?

– I really wanted to convey to the viewer the idea that good and bad people are not separated by geographical boundaries, they are in every nation on the planet. Whether someone is good or bad, greedy or kind, is a matter of human nature and character, not nationality. The series tells how the seeds of modern terrorism were sown in organizations such as ISIS (recognized as terrorist and banned in the Russian Federation), and what consequences this will entail today and in the future. Therefore, although it is a historical project, it remains very relevant. I see “Trader” as an original way to give a multinational and multicultural overview of a decade of world history. All other existing series tell historical plots from the point of view of one country, while reality is always more complicated.

– Foreign directors do not often work in Russia, and you have an impressive experience. Back in the 1990s, you filmed The Silent Witness here, with Oleg Yankovsky and Marina Zudina. What do you remember about those times?

“I remember those days very well. The early 90s was a very busy and difficult time for film production in Russia. In October 1993, there was a curfew in Moscow, we had problems with customs, and there was also an outbreak of diphtheria. And it all coincided with our first days of filming. But somehow we managed.

– Already in the 2000s you were one of the producers of the film “Gagarin. First in space.” Russia again…

“I have always been fascinated by space exploration. At the age of nine, I must have been old enough to watch the moon landing live and appreciate the event. I wanted to explore other achievements in space exploration when everything was happening for the first time. It was a big revelation to me that the Russians were so far ahead of the Americans for so long, so I wanted to tell Yuri’s story from a Russian point of view.

– In your filmography there are very famous films. Nine Mile Horror with Adrian Paul, Guilty with Bill Pullman, and classic horror American Werewolf in Paris. Why are there always long gaps between releases of your films?

— As an independent producer, screenwriter and director, I have to seek funding to complete the project, as well as work on the script. All this takes a lot of time. And, unfortunately, not all projects can be implemented. For example, the documentary The Singularity is Near was filmed over five years and incorporated a lot of research, graphics and interviews that we did during production. As for The Trader, the shooting and editing of sixteen episodes took almost four years, so there is simply no time left for anything else during such periods. The amount of screen time is equivalent to about eight films, no wonder it’s a long process. Also, I’m working on real estate projects and writing a dissertation on the origin of the universe, in general, I work not only on films!

– You shot thrillers, horrors, worked on documentaries. What genre can you call yours?

— My interests are very diverse, and I do not like to be tied to one type or genre of cinema. I choose and develop most of my projects myself. But something comes from people I’ve worked with in the past. “Trader” is one of four joint projects with producer Alexander Bukhman, the script of which was written by his wife Nina.

– The action of the series takes place in different countries, including such exotic ones as Iraq, Jordan, Cuba. Have you been there?

— I was born in Beirut and lived there for almost the first ten years of my life, so the Arab culture is familiar to me. My father was a Kuwait Airways pilot and we traveled to many countries including Iraq and Jordan. I have lived in thirteen different countries, sometimes several at the same time. But he has not yet been to Cuba or Niger, two countries that appear briefly in the series. To be honest, we filmed these episodes in Tunisia.

— What places do you remember in Russia?

– I have been to Moscow and St. Petersburg many times, in Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, I have been to Baikonur in Kazakhstan. This journey is connected with the launch of a rocket from the same platform from which Yuri Gagarin launched. He also visited Kaluga, Tsiolkovsky’s hometown, several times was a guest in Star City, as well as in all the places where he lived, trained, worked and where Gagarin died.

— A large international team worked on Trader. I can imagine how many translators were needed …

— I am used to working in a multilingual environment and have learned a lot of Russian words while working on several projects in Russia. By the end of filming The Trader, the producers had even stopped hiring a translator for me to save money, which I felt was a bit premature! I’m not confident enough to give a full interview in Russian, but I have some very limited conversational Russian skills. Many of the young actors spoke English, as the script required. I also dealt with a Russian film crew in Tunisia who worked with an Arab crew but, being fluent in French, could also communicate with Tunisians. At the beginning of filming, Misha Gavrilov, who plays the main role of Oleg Nesterov, did not speak English at all, despite the fact that he had more English lines than everyone else. As a result, he went on an intensive crash course.

What famous historical moment from the recent past would you like to film?

“Now I’m not so much interested in stories from the past, but in the technologies of the future, which are approaching with incredible speed. The world is changing and evolving in ways that, on the one hand, stagger the imagination, but are also dangerous and endanger life on the planet.