18th Sochi Open Russian Film Festival
3-11 June 2007

Ron Holloway, Berlin, 2 July 2007

The revival of New Russian Cinema was celebrated in grand style at the 18th Sochi Open Russian Film Festival (3-11 June 2007). Programmed out-of-competition, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra and Andrei Zvyagintsev's Izgnanie (The Banishment), both Russian entries at this year's Cannes festival, were warmly received by the home audience. And a special screening spotlighted Svetlana Proskurina's Luchshe vremya goda (The Best of Times), which has been selected for the upcoming Venice festival. Unfortunately, however, four new Russian films slated for the upcoming Moscow film festival – namely, Vera Storozheva's Puteshestvie s domash nimi (Traveling with Pets), Larisa Sadikova's Nichego lichnogo (Nothing Personal), Valery Ogorodikov's Putina (Fishing Season), and Aleko Tsabadze's Russky treugolnik (Russian Triangle) – could not be seen at the Sochi festival, although advertisements for these (and other forthcoming releases) were prominently displayed in the main hall of the Hotel Zhemchuzhina, the festival headquarters.

 Sochi opened with Andrei Konchalovsky’s Glyanets (Gloss). a two-and-a-half-hour popular melodrama starring Julia Vysotskaya, a television personality (and Konchalovsky’s latest wife). Programmed out-of-competition, Gloss is the story of a seamstress from the provinces who dreams of becoming a model. When she finally does land a job at a Moscow modeling agency as an assistant to an elite fashion designer, she discovers that the world of fashions is not what it’s all cracked up to be. Also, among a dozen more out-of-competition mainstream hits presented in the “Cinema on the Square” sidebar, a nightly open-air series programmed before the Winter Theater, was Rezo Gigineishvili’s Zhara (Heat), a phenomenal feature film debut. This come-of-age story about four youths during the hot summer of 2006, Heat had headed the home boxoffice charts for the first quarter of the current season.

 As for the 13 Russian films competing for prizes at Sochi, three major festival awards – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor – went to the same film: Alexei Popogrebsky’s Prostye veshchi (Simple Things). Starring Sergei Puskepalis as a low-paid hospital anaesthetist, who lives with his wife and teenaged daughter in a crowded communal apartment, Simple Things takes on color and interest when the down-and-out husband and father accepts a side-job caring for a crusty old actor in the last stages of his cancer ailment.

 Simple Things also shared the “White Elephant” Russian Critics Prize with Alexei Balabanov’s Gruz 200 (Cargo 200), the latter deemed the most controversial entry at Sochi. A black comedy with horror overtones, Cargo 200 depicts the last days of the Soviet Union in a depressing backwater town, where crime goes hand in hand with police corruption. The title refers to an air cargo of dead Soviet soldiers shipped home in coffins in 1984, at a time when the Afghan war was already considered a lost cause by the population. Take Balabanov at his word, then the body count in Cargo 200 hardly registers as a tragedy when compared with a corrupt police force, some decadent government politicians, and a vodka-numbed provincial populace.

 Alexei Mizgiryov’s Kremei (Hard-Hearted), another hard-hitting crime drama about police corruption in today’s Moscow, was awarded Best Debut Film. The Gorin Prize for Best Screenplay also went to Mizgiryov, together with his scriptwriter Yury Klavdiev. The Best Actress Prize was awarded to Maria Shalayeva for her performance as a blithe spirit in Anna Melikian’s Rusalka (The Mermaid), a wispy fairy tale about a young girl who emerges from the sea to affect everyone she meets in quaint but helpful ways during her brief sojourn among dispirited humans. The Tariverdiev Prize for Best Musical Score was awarded to Anton Silayev, whose score for Marina Razbezhkina’s Yar (The Ravine) impressed as the film’s primary aesthetic principle. Based on a story by Sergei Esenin, The Ravine is best described as film parable with mystical overtones. Somewhere in an isolated rural community, a free-thinker rebels against the notion that departure from this “hollow” presages punishment for himself and death for his loved ones.

 A special award was handed to Moscow film historian Naum Kleiman “for his contribution to the preservation of Russia’s cinematic heritage” – a citation that prompted a standing ovation from his peers at Sochi. Kleiman is currently being supported as well by international scholars in his bid to maintain an archival cinematheque in the heart of the Moscow, a conviction that has led to some head-knocking with government authorities. In an effort to focus further attention on the plight of the Russian Film Archive, a special program titled “50 Choose 50” screened the first half of 50 Russian film classics, the series voted upon by 50 well known Russian critics. Introductory essays by critic-historians Yevgeny Margolit, Sergei Lavrentiev, and Viktor Matizen spotlighted acclaimed masterpieces of Russian film art, whose directors numbered Eisenstein, Kuleshov, Kalatozov, Barnet, Medvedkin, Room, Kozintsev and Trauberg, and the Vasiliev Brothers, among others. Hopefully, this remarkable retrospective series will go on tour.

 Another special award was given to Venice festival director Marco Müller, who in the past had championed the cinema of Kyra Muratova, Alexander Sokurov, and Svetlana Proskurina at festivals in Pesaro, Rotterdam, Locarno, and now Venice. The tribute coincided with the screening of Kyra Muratova’s Dva v odnom (Two in One), a feature film comprised of two separate short stories. In the first tale an actor hangs himself during the general rehearsal for a play that will open that very evening, his death prompting some members of the cast to reflect on the possibility of murder rather than suicide – whereupon another member of the ensemble is “accidentally” eliminated. In the second story, set on New Year’s Eve, an aging stage personality struggles with the phobia of being forgotten by the public. So he invites his daughter and her girlfriend to provide him with the sheer sensual joy of being alive in his luxurious flat.

 The 18th Sochi festival broke new ground with a vibrant film market and roundtable forum on the status quo of the entire Russian film industry. Approximately 1500 film professionals journeyed this year to the Black Sea resort to assess the fortunes and future of an ever-growing film industry. Over a three-day stretch some 50 stands set up in the festival center at the Hotel Zhemchuzhina gave every appearance of doing bonanza business. A half-dozen glossy trade magazines, each packed with pages of advertisements, trumpeted forthcoming Russian and international releases, the focus primarily on boxoffice returns in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a half-dozen other major cities across the breath of Russia.

 How much business was actually being done on the spot at Sochi? As one insider commented, “it all depends on who’s doing the pitching.” Thus, in my opinion, Kinotavr’s artistic director Sitora Alieva may have hit the nail on the head in her editorial penned for the Sochi festival catalogue: “In today’s Russia there’s plenty of talk about movies, but not enough cinema to be proud of.” One market stand, however, did effectively advertise a coming blockbuster to keep an eye on: Sergei Bodrov’s historical epic Mongol was ballyhooed from the inside of a yurt common to the Mongolian steppes.

 Mongol (part one of planned trilogy) is the story of the childhood and young manhood of Genghis Khan, the 13th-century father of the Mongol nation who’s recognized as one of the world’s great military leaders. Known in his youth by his given name, Temudjin, the lad witnesses the murder of his father and experiences a string of vengeful quarrels among the bloodthirsty nomadic tribes on the vast Mongolian steppes. When the tribes are finally united at the end under the leadership of Ghengis Khan, his hold on his people requires a victory over his enemies in battle scene reminiscent of the Battle of Agincourt (1415) depicted in Laurence Olivier’s heroic Henry V (1944). Bodrov wisely chose an outsider, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, to play the warrior khan as he rises from subjugation to unite the Mongolian tribes under a single banner. The epic’s primary international coproduction partner is Germany’s X-Filme.

An Interview with Alexander Rodnyansky

 Almost singlehandedly, via his film and television productions launched via his CTC Media Holding Company (aka STS Media), Alexander Rodnyansky has revitalized the entire Russian-Ukrainian media and home entertainment industry. Born in the Ukraine and based in Moscow, Rodnyansky is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival under its better known “Kinotavr” logo. In a personal interview he confirmed that his publicly listed CTC Media Holding Company had “cash-generated revenues between $3.5 and $4 billion” – thus making it by far the biggest media company in Eastern Europe.

 Asked about the reasons behind the current revival of Russian cinema, Alexander Rodnyansky cited a threefold perception of the market: firstly, the widespread acceptance of home television production; secondly, the increasing possibilities for theatrical release in major Russian cities; and thirdly, the expanding home entertainment market. “This threefold approach, more than any other, has helped the Russian film industry to become a real one,” he confirmed. With Russian boxoffice returns targeted to reach the $500 billion mark this year, that figure is staggering when compared with the meager $65 million boxoffice return back in 2001, of which circa $2 million was earmarked as accruing to Russian film productions. That year, only 39 Russian films were released in a couple hundred cinemas.

 Two years later, in 2003, with 40 Russian films in release, the Russian share of its home boxoffice rose to 25%, or $117 million from the $455 total boxoffice take. But the real turnaround took place in 2004, when Timur Bekmanbetov’s Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch) surpassed American releases, returning to date a boxoffice total of $16 million over the past three years. Bekmanbetov, who rose overnight from directing tv commercials to large-scale science-fiction spectacles, followed in 2006 with Dnevnoy dozor (Day Watch), a blockbuster that currently holds the boxoffice record of $35 million.

 In 2005, two more Russian productions competed for the top spot on the home boxoffice charts. Fyodor Bondarchuk’s 9 Rota (9th Company), a war film set in Afghanistan, was directed by none other than the son of the late Russian director and Oscar winner Sergei Bondarchuk. Running neck-and-neck was Dzhanik Faiziyev’s Turetskiy gambit (Turkish Gambit). An adaptation of Boris Akunin’s popular historical novel, it was directed by an actor-screenwriter who had previously directed tv mini-series. To date, 9th Company has returned $24 million at the Russian boxoffice, while Turkish Gambit hit $19 million on the boxoffice chart.

 This year, two more Russian mainstream productions are contending for the top boxoffice spot. According to the latest figures (published in “Russian Kino Business”), Nikolai Lebedev’s Volkodav iz roda serykh psov (Wolfhound), a prehistoric fantasy film directed by Nikolai Lebedev, has moved into second place on the all-time Russian boxoffice list with a return of over $20 million. Close on the heels of Wolfhound comes Rezo Gigineishvili’s Zhara (Heat), featuring the same winning cast of young actors billed in Fyodor Bondarchuk’s 9th Company. A comedy set during last year’s blazing hot summer, Heat has currently returned over $16 million at the Russian boxoffice. But American productions are also in the running for the top boxoffice slot. Shrek 3 has currently returned over $18 million, while Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End are both listed in the range of $14 million.

 Alexander Rodnyansky took pains to point out that his CTC Media Holding Company supports Russian art films with the same enthusiasm as mainstream movies. “Just look at those two entries in the Cannes competition: Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra and Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Banishment have heralded the return of the Russian art film.” Also, he underscored that arthouse productions backed by television funding are faring just as well as cinema releases. Pavel Lungin’s Ostrov (The Island), the story of a Russian sailor’s spiritual journey to redeem himself after betraying his commander to a German officer during the Second World War, returned $2.5 million at the home boxoffice. And Ivan Vyrypaev’s Euforiya (Euphoria), a poetic chronicle of a passionate love affair on an isolated farm landscape, has returned over $ 1 million after receiving an award at last year’s Venice festival.

 Rodnyansky was particularly ebullient about the rapid growth of cinema multiplexes across Russia. With state-of-the-art venues and multiplexes now totaling in the range of 1,500, most of these in urban centers, “the ever increasing boxoffice returns have to be seen in relation to expansion rate on the exhibition circuit.” But he emphasized that “Russia is already the world’s 10th largest film market.” And predicted that “by the end of 2007, overall boxoffice revenues will reach $ 500 million, if not more.”

 Asked then about mainstream blockbuster productions in the pipeline, he cited new films by Timur Bekmanbetov and Fyodor Bondarchuk. “After the back-to-back successes of Night Watch and Day Watch, Bekmanbetov is currently preparing Sumerechniy dozor (Dusk Watch, aka Twilight Watch). And considering that Day Watch returned $35 million, this third in the Watch series promises to do as well.” But it was Fyodor Bondarchuk’s screen adaptation of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s science-fiction novel Obitayemiy ostrov (The Inhabited Island) that excited Rodnyansky the most. “It’s my dream since I was 14 years of age.”

 The story of a 20-year-old country boy, who arrives at a strange planet, The Inhabited Island combines philosophical ideas with fast-moving action scenes. And, as is usual in Fyodor Bondarchuk’s films, it will feature a young actor in the key role making his screen debut. Conceived as a two-part spectacle running at four-and-a-half-hours, with a reported budget of $30 million, it is down as the most expensive production in Russian film history. According to Rodnyansky, circa $20 million will be spent on production costs, while another $10 million has been earmarked for advertising and promotion. He also confirmed that The Inhabited Island is far more than just a cinema release. Using all the media ploys at its disposal, the production will be merchandised with books, tv spots, movie trailers, computer games, and the like. “Another Kill Bill, I & II,” he cited by way of comparison. Midland Group, a Canadian company, has already invested $7 million in the production.

 Asked what the Russian film industry needed most at the present time, Rodnyansky answered unequivocally: “We badly need a Russian film office to promote our productions abroad.”

Sochi Russian Awards

Best Film
Prostyie veshchi (Simple Things), dir Alexei Popogrebsky

Best Debut Film
Kremei (Hard-Hearted), dir Alexei Mizgiryov

Best Actress
Maria Shalayeva, Rusalka (The Mermaid), dir Anna Melikian

Best Actor
Sergei Puskepalis, Prostyie veshchi (Simple Things), dir Alexei Popogrebsky
Special Mention
Leonid Bronevoy, Prostyie veshchi (Simple Things), dir Alexei Popogrebsky

Best Director
Alexei Popogrebsky, Prostyie veshchi (Simple Things)

Best Screenplay (Gorin Prize)
Alexei Mizgiryov, Yury Klavdiev, Kremei (Hard-Hearted), dir Alexei Mizgiryov

Best Film Music (Tariverdiev Prize)
Anton Silayev, Yar (The Ravine), dir Marina Razbezhkina

Best Short Film
Koza (Goat), dir Igor Voloshin
Special Mention
Lyudi iz kamiya (Stone People), dir Leonid Rybakov

Russian Critics “White Elephant” Award (ex aequo)
Gruz 200 (Cargo 200), dir Alexei Balabanov
Prostyie veshchi (Simple Things), dir Alexei Popogrebsky