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Cinema Russian Resurrection’s 11th year includes retrospective marking Mosfilm’s 90th anniversary
Prize-winning film without words leads 2014 festival
For kids, the program includes the animation Space Dogs 2 (Belka & Strelka’s Moon Adventures), and festival founder Nicholas Maksymow told RBTH that the festival always included a family film now because he thought it important to give young Australians the chance to see foreign films.
IN BRIEF Celebrated theatre director Lyubimov dies
Mosfilm retrospective
KINOPOISK.RU
Actors Yelena An and Danila Rassomakhin in The Test, which won three awards at the Kinotavr film festival in June.
In its 11th year, the Russian film festival, Russian Resurrection, will be running in six cities across Australia, from October 28 to November 23. KATHERINE TERS RBTH
Russian Resurrection will screen 14 new films from Russia and six Soviet-era films, as part of its retrospective on Mosfilm – Russia’s oldest film studio, which this year is celebrating its 90th anniversary.
New films Leading the program is The Test, or Ispitanie (2014), which won three prizes at Sochi’s Kinotavr film festival in June. With its surreal soundtrack and desolate desert landscapes, this visually rich film was awarded Kinotavr’s main prize, as well as the Elephant trophy (the prize of the Guild of Film Critics and Film Scholars) and the award for best cinematography.
Set in 1949 in north-eastern Kazakhstan, the story follows the impact of a nuclear explosion on a father and daughter who live near the Soviet Union’s largest test site, at Semipalatinsk. From 1949 to 1989, the Soviet government conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk, with little care for the local population or the environment. The public health impact of the testing was not known until after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and it is now estimated that radioactive fallout affected at least 200,000 residents, many of whom developed cancers and thyroid abnormalities. Film director Alexander Kott said wryly that he chose this story because he was interested in “everything to do with the end of the world”. Kott said he had been dreaming of making the film since he graduated 10 years ago from VGIK – Moscow’s Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, one of the world's
oldest film schools. Reflecting on why Kinotavr awarded him the main prize for the “realisation of a dream”, he said: “Because I made this film the way I wanted, without following a producer’s dictates. The film industry is tuned to commercialisation, so to find a way to make a film – without words – where
life of Ivan Poddubny, a Soviet wrestling hero from the first half of the 20th century. Poddubny, whose sporting career spanned 45 years, began in a circus but went on to win six world championship and Olympic titles. Iron Ivan, which was a success with younger audiences, brought in $6.4 million at the
The Soviet government conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk
Film festival Kinotavr awarded The Test its main prize for the "realisation of a dream"
the story rests on the picture, that was the realisation of a dream for me.” Kott emphasised that The Test didn’t have the usual ingredients for box-office success, which he said were“sex, violence, murder, and blood”. A more mainstream popular film in the program's lineup is Iron Ivan, or Poddubny (2014) – a drama about the
Russian box office – something that surprised its director, Gleb Orlov. Orlov told RBTH that he had feared that the life of a Soviet strong man might prove too obscure for contemporary audiences, but these fears proved to be false. He said the story only seemed to spur people on to find out more details about Poddubny’s life.
Mosfilm's logo – Vera Mukhina’s sculpture The worker and the woman from the collective farm in front of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower – is a striking example of Soviet monumental art. It is an image which has come to be associated with some of the world’s best cinema. The Soviet Union’s oldest film studio, which was established as Russia’s “first film factory” in 1923 by motion picture maker Aleksandr Khanzhonkov, produced works by Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky. By 1991, Mosfilm had made more than 3000 films. The best-known of those included in this year’s retrospective is Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala – a 1975 SovietJapanese co-production, shot on 70mm film, which won the Golden Prize and the Prix FIPRESCI at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival and the 1976 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Made in Russia’s far east, the film is about an indigenous Nanai guide who agrees to help a Russian explorer and a troop of soldiers through the wilderness, and in doing so risks his life. The story is based on the 1923 memoir of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev. Other films in the retrospective are the New Year comedy Carnival Night (1956), The White Sun of the Desert (1969) – an adventure classic, the war drama Liberation (1971), director Nikita Mikhalkov's award-winning Oblomov (1979) and the musical comedy Winter Evening in Gagrakh (1985). In Sydney, the festival will screen at Event Cinemas, in the city and Burwood, from October 30 to November 9, and in Melbourne, it will run at ACMI, Federation Square, from November 13 to 23. Tickets are already on sale. For more information, go to russianresurrection.com.
PHOTOSHOT/VOSTOCK-PHOTO
Just days after his 97th birthday, theatre director Yury Lyubimov died in his sleep on October 5, three days after being admitted to hospital in a Moscow. A key figure in Soviet and Russian theatre, Lyubimov was also internationally acclaimed. He directed performances at London’s Covent Garden, Milan’s La Scala and the Grand Opera in Paris. He is perhaps best remembered for his work at Moscow’s Taganka Theatre, where he resurrected avantgarde dramatic traditions of the 1920s that had been banned under Stalin.
Russian shares Michelin honour
PRESS PHOTO
NewYork restaurant Betony has been awarded a star in the latest Michelin Guide New York City 2015, which was released this month. This is the first time in the 114-year history of the guide that a Russian-owned restaurant has received a star. Betony’s owner, Russian restaurateur Andrei Dellos, heads the restaurant and catering company Maison Dellos, which has two restaurants in NewYork and eight in Moscow, with a ninth due to open next month. The highest Michelin rating is three stars and a restaurant cannot get more than one a year.
NEXT issue Discover more about Russian cuisine and culinary traditions with: useful tips from our authors workshops from Delicious TV and recipes from The Soviet Diet Cookbook
13 November
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