Garmash was assigned a sample of pure gold

The XXI International Festival of Film Debuts “Spirit of Fire” has opened in Khanty-Mansiysk. His first award for his contribution to cinema was immediately presented to Sergei Garmash. And the newly-made president of the festival, Emir Kusturica, could not come from Belgrade to Siberia – he broke his leg a couple of days before the start, and that was not without mysticism.

In December 2021, the president of the festival, Sergei Solovyov, passed away. He painted his own departure as if by notes. Even the commemoration took place according to his script. And now, as if from the other world, he continues to direct.

In 1981, at the 38th Venice Film Festival, Sergei Solovyov, as a member of the jury, presented an award for his debut film Do You Remember Dolly Bell? young Emir Kusturica. In 2017, he organized an autobiographical exhibition in St. Petersburg with a strange, but not for him, name, “The Leg of Fate”. And five years ago, Solovyov injured his hand as a result of a household injury in his own house. It was time to go to Khanty-Mansiysk, but the doctors advised against doing so. However, Solovyov nevertheless took a chance and even went on stage, as if nothing had happened, without a cast. All these events have now found a mystical reflection.

Kusturica was invited to lead the “Spirit of Fire” after the departure of Sergei Solovyov. He thought it over carefully and accepted the offer. But we all remember how Emir recently agreed to head the Army Theater, but then refused, explaining that he was misunderstood, that he was just ready to put a few scenarios on stage. Therefore, when a couple of days before the opening of the “Spirit of Fire”, the news came that Emir had broken his leg, skeptics decided that something was wrong. However, a day before the opening of the festival, we were provided with a video where Kusturica is actually reclining in a hospital ward, and his leg in a plaster was shot close-up. The Emir addressed the participants and guests of the film festival with words of hope that if everything goes well, he will still come to the closing after the operation. If not, then see you in a year. It is curious that he broke his leg in the places where he shot his painting “Life is like a miracle”. In general, solid signs of fate.

A few hours before receiving the award for his contribution to cinema, five minutes to five minutes from the laureate Sergey Garmash sharply scolded journalists, as he knows how, although no one was going to offend him. In the evening he was presented with an award, which in previous years was awarded in Khanty-Mansiysk to world stars Fanny Ardant, Catherine Deneuve, Christopher Lambert. Now the president of the international jury, Pavel Lungin, stepped on the stage and made a very strange speech that Fanny Ardant is just a beautiful woman, whose main happiness lies in the fact that she was the wife of Francois Truffaut. But whether she penetrated into those areas that are subject to Garmash is a big question. It was embarrassing for Ardan. It’s a good thing she doesn’t find out. Sergey Garmash recently starred in Lungin’s new film, and now the director responsibly says about his actor that he is a man of “pure test, pure gold.” And their meeting took place on the site even before the “apostolic rank”, in which the role in “Cheburashka” elevated Garmash. The mysterious gift of this artist, according to Lungin, is that we believe him. Garmash recalled from the stage Sergei Solovyov, who rose to the festival stage even in the year of his son’s death. Many that evening talked about those who were invisibly present in the hall – Stanislav Govorukhin, Alexander Abdulov, who stood at the origins of the festival …. Now Abdulov is reminiscent of a sculpture in the center of Khanty-Mansiysk and a bust awarded for the best male role.

Sergei Garmash has recently been in charge of Cheburashka. “A new electorate has appeared in my life who does not know who the artist Garmash is. Two weeks ago, I was returning from Tula, I went to an empty gas station, and suddenly a little girl, staring at me, said loudly: “Mom Gena,” the actor recalls. Dmitry Pevtsov recently castigated the film for “Mama Gena”, defending gender purity. But children have their own point of view.

– Today it rarely happens that you read the script, and there is no feeling that it needs to be finalized, – says Sergey Garmash. – In Cheburashka, there was a wonderful script from the very beginning, although we changed something in the process of work. We filmed the final rocket launch scenes in October, when it was terribly cold, but a huge number of people were on the set. My character has nothing to do with the crocodile. He is human, but viewers often don’t distinguish between cartoon and movie. The authors have every reason to continue this story, but Coppola filmed the continuation of The Godfather after his film received a response from the audience. I am often asked how I filmed with a doll. But there is nothing daunting in this, especially since I knew from the very beginning that I would not have a living Cheburashka in my hands. To get such a task at the age of 60 is happiness. Did you play with dolls as a child? Did you believe in them? Slept with them? We had three Cheburashkas: a furry one, a model for computer graphics, and a girl, Katya, who was an understudy of small stature. Yes, even Olya Kuzmina, who voiced the character.

At the debut festival, Garmash remembered his own debut.

– When an actor takes his first step in theater or cinema, it’s a terrible moment. Our profession is different from others in that the roulette spins at three times the speed and can ruin the lives of even incredibly talented people. My debut was my ticket to life. It was the film “The Detachment” by Alexei Simonov, the son of the great Russian writer Konstantin Simonov. Almost all of us were debutants there, and this picture opened the way for me to the cinema. I wish all young filmmakers good luck and open doors in cinema. A huge number of actors, now popular and honored, acted three or four times. And you need to find the strength to try again, so I tell young people: “Better forget about it.” I also told my daughter. And the festival for me is the best opportunity to make a movement in the cinema. The most beautiful thing that can happen here is a meeting between the director and the actor, after which they will do something together. The producer can see an inconspicuous girl who, it turns out, knows how to make a movie. If a convincing young man is sitting opposite you, who has shot only a short film, then only a stupid artist can say: “How old is he? 22 years old? No! Goodbye”. Why not? How old was Eisenstein when he became known to the whole world and became Sergei Mikhailovich for people who were 20 years older than him? He was 24 years old when The Battleship Potemkin was already in theaters around the world. Why say “no” to an aspiring director? Of course yes”. The question is how a person relates to the profession.