The festival of contemporary Russian cinema “Mayak” was held in Gelendzhik

The Mayak festival of contemporary Russian cinema, established by the Kinoprime Foundation, has ended in Gelendzhik. The jury, chaired by producer Igor Tolstunov, chose “Vacation” by Anna Kuznetsova as the best film, and the prize for best director’s work went to “The Plague” by Dmitry Davydov. Tells about the winners and other films that completed the festival screenings Julia Shagelman.

The program of the “pilot release” of “Mayak” turned out to be quite intense: eleven films were shown over five festival days, and in between them there were also business sessions where the future of the domestic film industry was discussed. Judging by the comments of experts, it does not look very rosy: as director Alexey German Jr. put it, “we are sluggish, and our cinema is sluggish,” and the questions of how to film on uncomfortable topics or with actors included in secret blacklists, and completely evoked a heavy silence in response.

Despite the regrettable absence of new Eisensteins and Spielbergs in Russian cinema noted by Mr. German, most of the films in the competition could not be accused of lethargy. Festival opener “Year of birth” Mikhail Mestetsky was remembered for his explosive punk energy, and Eldar Kalimulin, who played in it, rightfully received the prize for best actor at Mayak.

In turn, Yakut director Dmitry Davydov, who, after Scarecrow, which won at Kinotavr in 2020, embarked on stylistic experiments, returned to the genre of harsh northern drama and presented a tightly crafted, laconic b/w story of the escalation of violence in one Yakut village under the symbolic (albeit not entirely justified) name “Plague”.

Quiet, non-conflict Ivan (Georgy Bessonov) is accustomed to humbly enduring all the blows of fate: the death of his wife, the deception of employers, the mockery of a bullying neighbor, for which his teenage son Taras (Erkhan Sleptsov) despises him. And that same neighbor Vlad (Evgeniy Nikolaev), on the contrary, constantly pokes and calls his unrequited son (Radomir Tikhonov) a weakling. Disappointed in his father, Taras chooses the “real man” Vlad as a role model, which leads to increased tension both between these small all-male families and within them. The situation is resolved as it began, with an outbreak of violence, and the glimmer of hope for peaceful coexistence in the finale is too conventionally metaphorical to be truly believed.

The exact opposite of the gloomy “Plague” – gentle “Frau” Lyubov Mulmenko, who received the prize for best script. An eccentric salesman from the “Hunter and Fisherman” store, Vanya (lead singer of the OQJAV group Vadik Korolev), who read Till Eulenspiegel in his impressionable childhood, fancies himself a knight in search of a beautiful lady – he calls candidates for this role “Frau”. The next object of his romantic aspirations is the ballerina Christina (Liza Yankovskaya, awarded for best actress), at 29 years old already terribly tired of a hopeless affair with a married doctor (Aleksey Rozin) and a stuffy home life with her matriarch grandmother (Lyudmila Chirkova) and resigned mother (Inga Oboldina). From all this, she escapes into a relationship with Vanya, and each of the two tries to mold the other to suit themselves, until he understands – fortunately, before it was too late – that the word “need” (to have a family and children, to be normal, living like everyone else) is not at all the key to happiness. “Frau” can be called a romantic comedy, although it easily and effortlessly breaks the conventions of this genre. The authors themselves say that they filmed a funny and sad fairy tale, and they really succeeded in doing so.

Many films shown at Mayak turned out to be connected to each other by themes and ideas.

Two debut films directed by young women became such a pair: “Vacation” by Anna Kuznetsova and “The Kingdom” by Tatyana Rakhmanova, which received, respectively, the festival’s grand prix and the award for best debut. In both, the characters are teenagers (although Kuznetsova focuses more on adult heroines), when watching the second, the TV series “Euphoria” comes to mind, and in the first it is even directly mentioned.

IN “Holidays”, which tells about the trip of a school theater studio from Kaluga to the children’s theater festival in Sochi, the authors naturally strive to speak about how easy it is to be young, but also, for example, about censorship, the relationship between art and the state, women and patriarchy, and women between yourself. True, they all turn out to be extremely immature, and it is very difficult to believe in the story presented on the screen, despite the gallery of fresh young faces and the efforts of the wonderful actresses Daria Savelyeva and Polina Kutepova. Perhaps the jury appreciated these efforts, as well as the satirical depiction of an official and well-intentioned theater festival that eradicates everything remotely living in its program. But giving this, be that as it may, green and naive work the award for best film is a bizarre decision, especially for a new film festival that still has to work and work on its reputation.

IN “Kingdom” A group of kids from an orphanage spends all the money they received upon graduation on a grand party in a rented cottage. This spree cannot end in anything good – this is what happens; young heroes are forever suspended between a difficult past and an even more frightening future. The film, as is typical for debuts, came out rough, imperfect and in many ways naive, but on the director’s side there is the tactile camera work of the outstanding cameraman Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev (who received a well-deserved cinematography prize of the festival) and the cast, which captivates with its naturalness.

Alisher Khamidkhodjaev also worked on another competition film – “New Berlin” Alexey Fedorchenko. The director again turns to his favorite technique of mockumentary to tell the unexpected connections between Colombia, Germany and Antarctica, Che Guevara and the Jews, amateur theater and dictatorship, the Third Reich and raccoons. In the first of two chapters into which the film is divided, a graduate of the Marina Razbezhkina School of Documentary Film, Russian-German Viktor Schaufler (Sergei Kolesov) travels with his daughter (Daria Konyzheva) to Colombia to unravel the mystery of the ship that disappeared in 1956 with his Aunt Bertha and with another five hundred girls on board. The second is supposedly accidentally found documentary chronicles of a certain “Raccoon City”. Alas, by arranging in detail the life of this mysterious place, the author overplays and loses the audience’s attention. Of course, like any fairy tale, “New Berlin” is full of hints and lessons for good fellows (and girls), but deciphering them by the end of the second hour of running time becomes a completely tedious task.

Minus the Grand Prix, it’s hard to argue with the distribution of awards. By and large, it is not so much the results of the first “Mayak” itself that may cause concern, but rather its future coverage.

This time, his program included films shot mainly in 2020–2021, but the big question is whether the selectors of the next “Beacons” will be able to collect a sufficient number of interesting and decent author’s statements among the newer films. At least even sluggish ones.