Kusturica, who arrived in Siberia, spoke about the terrorist attack at Crocus: “What happened was terrible”

On March 23, the XXII International Festival of Cinematic Debuts “Spirit of Fire” was supposed to open in Khanty-Mansiysk. Some of the foreign guests and participants were already on their way when the terrorist attack occurred in Moscow. The festival took a break. Its new president, Emir Kusturica, flew to Siberia and staged a protest with untied shoelaces.

Public screenings have been cancelled. The children’s program was postponed until better times. They nevertheless decided to show the competition films in a closed format to an international jury led by the Hungarian composer and director Benedek Fligauf, whose film “The Dealer” once received an award at the “Spirit of Fire”.

In December 2021, the founder and president of the festival, Sergei Solovyov, passed away. For the second year, it is headed by Serbian film director Emir Kusturica, a two-time winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for the films Dad on a Business Trip and Underground. At the 1981 Venice Film Festival, Sergei Soloviev presented the aspiring Kusturica with an award for his debut Do You Remember Dolly Bell?

Kusturica was unable to take up presidential duties in Khanty-Mansiysk last year because he broke his leg and ended up in the hospital. There was an operation ahead, and Emir appeared only with a video message from the hospital room. This time the circumstances were even more extreme. Kusturica surprised by appearing with his shoelaces untied. It looked strange.

“You probably noticed that my shoelaces are not tied,” Emir Kusturica anticipated the questions. – When I was on the streets of Sarajevo (and this is his hometown, where during the Balkan war he lost everything, where nothing was left in the fire of war, not a single photograph of his parents – S.H.), – this was a sign that I am peaceful. Now I am also peaceful, so my shoelaces are not tied. I was in Khanty-Mansiysk at a festival five years ago with my group. This is the second festival at which I will work.

Several years ago I organized “Kunstendorf” in Serbia (in 2008 in the ethno-village Drvengrad, where the spirit of auteur cinema is cultivated in defiance of Hollywood – S.H.), and the young filmmakers who started there later won in Venice and Cannes. It’s a pity that it is now impossible to hold a big festival in Khanty-Mansiysk, as planned. What happened in Moscow is terrible. I remember Serbia in the 90s, when the country was isolated and it was impossible to live. And if earlier Bertolucci and other outstanding filmmakers came to our festival, then all communications were cut off.

It is very important that artists continue to do their work. Creativity helps improve your life. The best remedy against aggression is art.”

Film critics and the jury were able to watch in a half-empty hall without spectators the debut film “The Abnormal” by Ilm Malanin, notable for the fact that it was filmed not only in Russia, but also in China for the first time since the pandemic. Most of the filming took place in Novorossiysk and Shanghai.

The script was written by Roman Kantor (“Epidemic”, “The Master and Margarita”, “Silver Skates”) and Sergei Kozin. This is the story of the return to a full-blooded life of a boy, Kolya, confined to a wheelchair since childhood, who has a congenital genetic disease. The child is raised by his mother (Natalya Kudryashova), who works in a pharmacy, and grandmother (Nadezhda Markina). Having lost hope for healing and faith in traditional medicine, they invite a charlatan to the boy, who conducts strange sessions by candlelight. And only a meeting with Yuri (Alexander Yatsenko), who developed a unique gymnastics system, and his faith in the result will help the child move independently and become a pianist. Together with Yuri, 17-year-old Kolya will go to a music competition in China, where he will find real freedom, experience unknown feelings, and first fall in love with a beautiful Chinese woman named Anna. The story is fabulous and sweet, but according to the authors of the project, it is based on real events. But what is possible in life may look implausible on screen. In this case, this is partly what happened. But tears in the audience are guaranteed.

The work on the painting turned out to be long. It all started back in 2020. During this time, three directors changed. Actually, the third was 30-year-old Ilya Malanin. Before coming to cinema, he studied at the music college of pop-jazz art, graduated from the variety department of GITIS on a course with Valery Garkalin. Ilya worked as an actor at the MS Theater. M. Ermolova, actively starred in TV series and feature films (“Tobol”, “Policeman from Rublyovka”, “Dorm”).

He invited excellent actors – Alexander Yatsenko, Natalya Kudryashova, Nadezhda Markina – and used them to their advantage. Yatsenko and Markina have long been hostages to the stereotypical thinking of directors. Although in this case, experienced producers probably did their best. It’s a shame, because these are actors with enormous potential that is not even half used.

The role of the boy was played by debutant Elisha Svezhentsev, and Nikolai in his youth was played by Illarion Marov, who had previously starred in the series “Sixteen”, “Where the Wormwood Blooms”. In Shanghai, the grown-up hero meets a Chinese woman who, as is customary in her homeland, has a middle name of Anna, which makes it easier to communicate with foreigners. She was played by the pretty Chinese actress Xu Shiyue, who studied in St. Petersburg and knew Russian well, although she had to learn it before filming. In its own way, this is an interesting experience of collaboration with Chinese filmmakers, the very fact of heading east. In Khanty-Mansiysk, a memorandum was signed on the creation of the first joint Russian-Indian film project “Pearls”, which will be directed by Tina Barclay (her recent debut was “The Tales of Hoffmann”) based on the script by Yulia Lukashina. The producer from the Russian side will be Ekaterina Filippova, from the Indian side – Sarafaz Alam Safu).