The Abdrashitov Prize was awarded for the first time in Moscow
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The XXIX Human Rights Film Festival “Stalker” has ended in Moscow. Just a year ago, its president was film director Vadim Abdrashitov. Once his predecessor and senior colleague Marlen Khutsiev said that jury members become names. Now they are both gone and awards are being given out in their honor.
The first prize named after Vadim Abdrashitov was awarded to the most experienced participant in the gaming competition program, Yusup Razykov, who presented “The French Master” with Alexey Guskov in the role of an elite massage therapist. His clients mysteriously disappear, and he himself chases the ghosts of the past and sees his first love in an unfamiliar girl.
A special prize named after the long-time president of “Stalker” and the Directors’ Guild, Marlen Khutsiev, was awarded to the film “Red” by Semyon Serzin about the talented Ural poet Boris Ryzhy, whose life was tragic and his death came too early. The award for the older brother was given to actor Evgeniy Serzin, who starred in one of the roles.
The best feature film, according to the jury, was “Knots” by Oleg Khamokov from Nalchik. The film, shot in the Kabardian language, tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who married an older man. It is important for him to always be the first, to build the largest house in the entire district. But he did not notice that family life was gradually turning into hell. Oleg Khamokov is a student of Alexander Sokurov from the already legendary Kabardino-Balkarian workshop, which conquered Cannes and other festivals around the world.
Among the many awarded works in the field of documentary cinema, I would like to highlight the film “Rudolf Nureyev. The Last Dance” by Tatiana Malova, awarded a jury diploma. It is dedicated to the last role of the outstanding artist in the ballet “Cristoforo” at the Budapest Opera and Ballet Theater. The attending physician, realizing that ballet was life for an already hopeless patient, advised: “Go and dance.” By that time, Nureyev could no longer do on stage what had recently been easy for him. The physically controlled role of the Angel was written especially for him.
It would seem that everything is already known about Nureyev’s life, but, perhaps, there were no such memories. They are honest and unexpected. The Hungarian partners remember well what turned out to be the farewell visit of their famous colleague. One of the ballerinas, who once left Hungary for the Netherlands, says that Nureyev was a man without a homeland. After leaving the USSR and making a brilliant career in the West, he suffered from the inability to meet his mother and his loved ones. And he didn’t bother himself with the partnership: he carried the ballerinas backstage and immediately passed them from hand to hand, he himself never lowered them onto the stage. He could be harsh towards his partners, as one of the ballerinas who danced India recalls, but he could forgive something, and in return he was forgiven a lot.
“Angelus” by Eduard Zholnin, who participated in the gaming competition, received a diploma from the Guild of Film Directors of the Russian Federation. This is the director’s second film after the brilliant debut “Zemun”. And here it’s time to defend the director’s rights, since the fate of the film is developing dramatically. Rental car rental companies do not line up.
The title of the film was given by the painting “Angelus” by the French artist Jean-François Millet, stored in the Orsay Museum in Paris. It shows a couple with a baby standing in a field. Once upon a time it depicted a small coffin, judging by the testimony of experts. A couple mourns their child.
The heroine of the film, Tanya, lives in an ancient town and sings in a church choir. Her father, an almost Pushkin-like stationmaster, meets and sees off the trains. The mother went to a monastery after the death of her 21-year-old son in the Chechen war. Together with her father, Tanya rereads his letters; he described his participation “in events to restore constitutional law and order on the territory of the Chechen Republic.” Her brother periodically appears to her, forever young with a mutilated face, asking if they remember him. Yes, my family remembers.
Eduard Zholnin wrote the script in 2021. The winter block was filmed from February 8 to February 23, 2022. We decided not to change anything in the text, to preserve the original idea. The catalysts for the story were “Dark Alleys” by Bunin, in particular the story “Tanya”, and “The Station Agent” by Pushkin. Quiet, gentle stories, as Edward himself will say, that had to be imbued with pain. “2-3 steps to the side – and already the Spas TV channel.”
After the screening of the film, I asked the director about the scenes of the appearance of his deceased son and brother. In “Ilyich’s Outpost” by Marlen Khutsiev, there is a conversation between the young hero and his deceased father, where the son is older than his father. How much did Soviet officials torture Khutsiev for this scene? Eduard Zholnin replies: “Can I tell the truth? I haven’t watched this film by Marlen Khutsiev. Honestly. Later the audience told me about this scene. Those whose fathers returned with this wound, or children who became orphans. This generation had the right to such a high note. And we are different, a generation that forgets everything. I shot the picture for the sake of one simple question: do they remember us? No complaints against anyone. I am now 36 years old. As a child, I saw the Chechen events on television. And at the age of 16, he got a job as a security guard at a children’s camp, and was on duty at night with a lost man who had returned from the second Chechen war. There were people with disabilities on the subway. These were markers of time that could not be erased. The letters that the characters read in our film are real.”
“Angelus” was filmed in Nerekhta. There was no money, and the film crew worked for free. People took vacations and went to the Kostroma region. Cameraman Sergei Tsipis explains: “Eduard is like a guide dog for me. I follow him with my eyes closed.” In fact, the entire group is volunteers and patrons of the film. The performer of the role of Tanya, Milena Nesterova, recalls: “We all lived together in one house, actually in a hut, with one shower for everyone.” “They filmed not in a monastery, but in a museum of religion. We agreed with the priests. They read the script. To them we were heretics. But there was a priest who invited us to his monastery,” recalls Eduard Zholnin. Before making the film, he and one of the actors got a job in a cowshed.
But today there is a film – and it’s as if it’s not there. Rare festival screenings are not a solution. Eduard has a new script “Demon” about Mikhail Vrubel. Timofey Tribuntsev was planned for the main role. However, the pitching at the Demon Cinema Fund did not go through, which means there is no need to wait for funding. Another script, “Winter on Lenin Street,” was pitched at the Ministry of Culture and was put on reserve. This is a story about a nursing home. “I always wanted to make a film about older people, because the tragedies that happen to them in Russia are so invisible. There the hut burned down – minus 20 people, somewhere else – minus 30 people,” says Eduard. – Eternal flames. There are a lot of them. I have an idea to go with Chekhov to Ward N6. I know who needs to be treated.”
Newspaper headline:
Director in the barn
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