In Khakassia filmed “Chekago” with the participation of local residents and actors
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Actor Yuri Kuznetsov returned to his homeland and received an icon from the colony
The development of regional cinema has been constantly discussed in recent years. Cinematographers from Kazan and Irkutsk are inviting star-studded artists such as Dmitry Pevtsov, Marat Basharov, and Viktor Sukhorukov to play the lead roles. In Khakassia, a local studio made the film “Chekago”, which is positioned as “a real movie from Siberia”, although the main participants were brought from Moscow.
In Abakan, they are proud that the films “The End of the Emperor of the Taiga” and “The Barber of Siberia” were filmed in Khakassia, they recall Andrey Zvyagintsev, who looked closely at the local landscapes when starting to “Leviathan”. But the delivery of film equipment to a distant region turned out to be an unbearable task. And only years later they began to shoot films here again – at the Abakan railway station, in Chernogorsk and Sayanogorsk, in one of the correctional colonies. Yuri Kuznetsov (“My friend Ivan Lapshin”, “Heart of a Dog”, “Brother”, “Streets of Broken Lanterns”), who arrived at the shooting of “Chekago”, was presented with an icon created by convicts. And he gave his autographed photograph as a gift to the museum of the penitentiary system of Khakassia. The fact is that the actor was born in Abakan, where his father served in the police. So this is in every sense the right move on the part of director Nikolai Rybnikov – to invite Kuznetsov. And the artist is excellent, and the offer is a win-win – rarely anyone will refuse to visit his hometown once again.
Kuznetsov is a block, a master. On the “Chekago” worked mostly debutants. This is the director Rybnikov himself – a 35-year-old graduate of the VGIK workshop Valery Akhadov with experience in a completely different field, who helped in the creation of the first film. “The movie was shot to the last drop of blood, to the last pants. I myself am from the small town of Pskov. Came to Abakan for the first time. I sat on the balcony of the producer Vlad Kafeev, looked at the courtyard – the same as in my native Pskov. Vlad is a movie lover. We met at the MIFF. We have 40 debutants from Khakassia. The group trained for a month before filming. We did everything in Khakassia, and this is madness and courage. They brought only the actors, partly the camera shop. The script was written for three years, ”said Nikolai Rybnikov. The idea of the picture belongs to Vladislav Kafeev and Grigory Ugryumov, who became producers. They did everything that was required and not required, they did not shun anything. Vladislav Kafeev, being the general producer, helped to install toilets on the site.
The cameraman of the film, Ekaterina Sokova, is also a debutante, a photographer from Pskov. Her work has been published in foreign magazines and exhibited in European galleries. Ekaterina is also a wedding photographer. She shoots newlyweds in a non-standard way, for sure someone doesn’t even really like it, but this is art. A harsh mountain landscape, a tram going to the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, garages, five-story buildings, gateways – all this Ekaterina shot unexpectedly and beautifully. Production designer Olga Melanich is also a debutante, has a director’s education.
According to the plot, a large batch of drugs appeared in the town of Chegarinsk, called by the people Chekago. As the director explained, they had to rename the real Chernogorsk, where the shooting took place, so as not to offend the locals. Who is pleased that his native places are known as the center of banditry and drug trafficking. Nikita lives there, dreaming of moving to the capital to pursue a musical career. When he tells a childhood friend (Danil Steklov) that he is “dumping to Moscow”, he will ask again: “What? Does your homeland not accept you? What are you going to do there? And he will offer to throw a bag of drugs in Krasnoyarsk: “If you do it, you will rent a hut for yourself on Sadovoye.”
Relatives are also not happy with Nikita’s idea. The grandfather of his girlfriend (Yuri Kuznetsov) will ask: “Why don’t you live here?” “There are more chances,” Nikita will answer. He needs money to make his dream come true, and he involves the violinist Elena (Mila Ershova) in a criminal case, with whom she performs at the club. One crime leads to another, it is impossible to get out of the vicious circle. “I normally want. To live in a normal society,” Nikita will belatedly tell his accomplices. But the claw got stuck, and the power of darkness came. The role of Nikita was superbly played by the talented debutant Eldar Safikanov. He himself was born in the small town of Salavat near Ufa, came to Moscow, entered the course of Mindaugas Karbauskis at GITIS, and immediately after graduating from high school, he got on the set of Chekago. Since 2021, Eldar has been an actor at the Bolshoi Theater. Tovstonogov.
Ivan Kokorin played an honest and principled worker, hegemon and Siberian hero. The role was written specifically for him, but the screen test had to pass. And then the director something did not work out with the imaginary image. Nevertheless, he approved the artist. In the role of the lover of a sexy undercover young lady (Galina Bezruk plays both the mistress of a drug supplier and a police informant in one person), Ivan Kokorin looks strange and unconvincing. But the problem is not in him at all, but in the fact that at some point a movie begins in the spirit of Yuri Bykov’s “The Plant”, when the working class rises to fight for justice. This was done in an alien “Chekago” style.
Actors from Khakassia starred in the film – Inna Mainagasheva, Denis Engel, Viktor Sagalakov, Anat Bydyshev. Dmitry Kireev from the Minusinsk Theater played a memorable opera tied to the drug mafia. Filmed by local residents, enthusiastically responding to the call of filmmakers. The film turned out to be alive, albeit on a well-established theme. The labeling “regional cinema” is rather conditional here. The very fact that the director is a stranger in Abakan causes some disappointment.
Newspaper headline:
Yuri Kuznetsov returned to his homeland
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