Yulia Peresild plunged into Georgian space in Vyborg

Film shot in quarantined Tbilisi opens Russian festival

The 31st Russian Film Festival has opened in Vyborg. Everything here is the same as in previous years, only the name “Window to Europe”, which has become familiar over the thirty years, has disappeared. Probably because the window has turned into a window. The border with Finland is nearby, but it is impossible to overcome it. Now the festival is called “Vyborg”, for which critics scold its leadership. Thank you for making it through. Thank you for being alive. Producer Ekaterina Filippova, who presented the opening film Nina by Oksana Bychkova, thanked for the opportunity to show the movie and the opportunity to live in difficult times.

For the last 23 years, the festival has been led by a brilliant mind, film critic by the grace of God and ex-Minister of Cinematography Armen Medvedev. A year ago, it was in Vyborg that he gave an interview to MK. In December last year, Armen Nikolayevich died, and his presidential chair is still vacant.

Once upon a time, the festival had a full-fledged program of films shot in co-productions from different countries. Now they are almost gone. Nina, which opened Vyborg, is a rare exception. It was created by Russia jointly with Georgia. The world premiere took place at the Shanghai Film Festival. The film was also presented in the industrial program of the San Sebastian International Film Festival. There is already a picture of the same name by the Polish director Olga Haidas, who lives in the USA. And she won in 2018 at the Rotterdam Film Festival in The big Screen Award, where in 2014 Oksana Bychkova received an award in the same section for One More Year. And this is not the only coincidence. Haidas has a heroine closer to forty. She is a French teacher and has a peculiar relationship with her husband. Oksana Bychkova’s Nina is about the same age, she also works with children (she is a speech therapist), and her husband is also special.

Nina was played by Yulia Peresild. Various actresses auditioned for the role. When Julia came and did everything right, Oksana realized that she had found what she was looking for. And she needed a “watercolor girl”, and this is not at all what Peresild did before. After filming in Nina, she flew to Baikonur, and the entire Russian-Georgian group was very worried about her.

Nina seems to be doing well, has a little son and a sensitive, understanding husband (Kirill Kyaro). He generously lets his wife go to Tbilisi to meet her former lover, who is seriously ill. His name is Ruslan, and he is, as they say, a downtrodden gentleman. He is played by Evgeny Tsyganov, who has previously starred with Oksana Bychkova. Nina goes to console and say goodbye to where they were once happy, but her trip to Georgia will turn into an unexpected ending for everyone.

The script was written by Lyubov Mulmenko with the participation of Oksana Bychkova. Some of the dialogue is very good and funny. Ruslan says to Nina: “Why am I so cool, and no response?” And she will have an amusing dialogue with a young Georgian: “How do you feel?” – “Like a grandmother. Early grandma. Maybe, in isolation from the visual range, these words do not make much impression, but on the screen they sound accurate and ironic. The situation itself is embarrassing. But, as was said, for the authors this is a very personal story. Perhaps this happens in the white world. What happens in life sometimes looks incredible and even fake in the cinema, becoming something that is generally hard to believe.

Oksana Bychkova succeeds in screen trips to other cities. She filmed a short story for the almanac “Petersburg. Only for love”. Her other films can also be attributed by geography. Her debut “Peter FM” became a walk around St. Petersburg, and the recent film “What Slava Wants” is a trip through quite poetic and romantic Moscow. “Nina” – a trip around Tbilisi. The film was shot during quarantine and a hard lockdown, when a curfew was introduced in the city. Now, with quite a few Russians flocking to Tbilisi, there is an unplanned new focus. Russian cinema is Georgians, red wine… Almost like in one Soviet play, where the heroine recalls the old days with the tart taste of real life.

Ekaterina Filippova presented the picture alone. The actors are busy filming and are in different cities. They greeted the audience from the screen, pre-recorded messages. Oksana is also working on a new project in the Malyshariki universe, but she hasn’t sent a message. It turned out that editing and sound was done without her. In such cases, directors even remove their names. Not the only dramatic story in our cinema. Ekaterina Filippova told how they filmed in the midst of covid, when everything was closed, only morgues, hospitals, pharmacies, and one check-in desk at the airport were working. The emptiness of the city is felt in the frame. The Nina film group was the only one that worked then thanks to a co-producer from the Georgian side, who obtained permission to shoot. We got to Tbilisi through Istanbul and Amsterdam, sometimes through both cities. But there is no evil without good. As Ekaterina Filippova says, some doors closed, but others opened. I had to be creative.

Many did not understand the finale of the film, especially men. It is not the most winning for most viewers. Someone had to explain that we are talking about love and dislike, the fallacy of the previous choice. Oksana Bykova always takes pictures of this. Life is fragile and can be interrupted at any moment, and a woman is very vulnerable. One person can take the death of another.

“One More Year” was initiated by the State Film Fund as a remake of Pavel Arsenov’s film “Don’t Part With Your Loved Ones”, based on the play of the same name by Alexander Volodin with Irina Alferova and Alexander Abdulov in the lead roles. And here is another coincidence. Alexander Abdulov, who would have turned 70 this year, became the face of the festival. A video about him accompanies each show. He looks at us from the front of the cinema. Alexey Filimonov and Nadezhda Lumpova played with Oksana Bychkova. Their heroes loved each other, but turned out to be completely incapable of cherishing feelings, destroying the best that was in their lives. And in other paintings by Bychkova, the heroes part against the backdrop of beautiful cities, and now countries. Oksana knows how to convey their spirit and atmosphere. But Tbilisi turned out to be a postcard, seen through the eyes of a tourist. Actors do not always have enough psychological nuances, subtleties, so that the viewer can experience their pain as his own, and not remain a contemplator.