Days of Russian cinema under the brand of Russian Film Festival were held from October 21st to 23rd at the Moscow cinema in Yerevan. The curator of the festival, film critic and journalist Diana Martirosyan discussed the films with the audience after the screenings during the festival. She has shared her impressions of how the Armenian public received them.
The opportunity to watch festival, auteur or at least art-mainstream films on the big screen is always a feast for a cinephile. And if I have no opportunity to discuss films personally with their authors, then at least I’d like to listen to the opinion of the audience.
Secondary school students, for example, after the screening of the disaster film "Fire" (also known as “No Escapes”) by Alexei Nuzhny said that in comparison with numerous adaptations of comics, this movie seems to them much more meaningful, deep and dramatic.
Nuzhny became a revelation back in 2012, as he shot the mystical short film Envelope, where Kevin Spacey played the role of the writer Yevgeny Petrov, but he became truly famous years later, thanks to the comedies Speakerphone and I'm Losing Weight.
The disaster film "Fire" is a completely new stage for the director, which clearly shows the scale of Russian film production, and all nostalgic film fans who still remember the images of Konstantin Khabensky in "Deadly Force" and "Night Watch” and “Day Watch" will have a slight feeling of deja vu in as they watch brigade commander Sokolov.
For two hours Nuzhny and director of photography Mikhail Milashin unfold on the screen scenes of action and environmental disaster in Karelia, alternating them with those of the the main characters’ family drama and focusing our attention on the love triangle: the daughter (Stasya Miloslavskaya) of Khabensky's character, the young man's daughter and the rookie firefighter (Ivan Yankovsky), who has yet to prove that he is worthy of being both a member of the fire brigade and the beloved man of his sweetheart.
Perhaps a 6+ rating is a little low for a viewer who is hardly interested in following the love plotline, but the scenes of rescue and heroic deeds, although not always realistic, keep delighting schoolchildren.
Milashin as a cameraman has shot another film, screened at the Russian Film Festival in Yerevan, Nika, which is a biographical (or semi-biographical) feature film by a debutant, Vasilisa Kuzmina. The film tells the story of the Soviet child prodigy and poetess Nika Turbina, played by the mesmerizing Liza Yankovskaya. The aesthetics and atmosphere of 2002 here are more reminiscent of the late 90s with chokers around the neck, leather raincoats like Neo’s from The Matrix and neon signs with Soviet lettering which decorate seaside hotels, bars and stalls. Together with Yankovskaya, Anna Mikhalkova shines on the screen (a perfect hit in the role), who played the mother of the poetess - Maya – which arguably is one of her most impressive roles. After Nika’s screening was over the audience kept sitting silently for a while before someone dared to take up the microphone to speak out, while some kept their silence, thereby confirming the understatement of the film itself and some kind of a semi-bitter aftertaste that it left.
A completely different, light and playful mood reigned at the screening of Anna Melikyan's mini-series "Tenderness", filmed after the release of the same name short film of the in 2018. Moscow businesswoman Elena Ivanovna Podberezkina (Victoria Isakova), in search of her ideal prince in his turtleneck sweater (Evgeny Tsyganov), eventually meets the sarcastic and charismatic sculptor Gosha (Konstantin Khabensky, once again). In a series of semi-comical sketches, the problems of a modern Moscow woman who is trying to find happiness are revealed. It is not surprising that by the end of the screening, after all 11 episodes were all shown, mostly women were left in the hall, who laughed out loud and noted funny coincidences of the plot with incidents in their own life.
Yerevanian average viewer is not always ready to sacrifice the last weekend for the sake of going to the cinema. However, the Sunday screening and discussion of Sergei Osipyan's retro comedy drama "Portrait of a Stranger" was rather crowded and lively. Many passionately and eagerly discussed the years of their youth, which occurred precisely in the 70s, the period in which the film plot unfolds.
The story of the unsuccessful actor Orlov (Yuri Butorin, known mainly for his theatrical roles) and the talented veteran writer Nikolaev (the amazing Kirill Pirogov) is something between a theatrical production and television sketches, where, in an environment of bright scenery, of underground and bohemian apartment dwellers, the viewer jumps from one protagonist dissatisfied with his own life to another one. The writer is frustrated of constant expectations to produce something new, while in his own opinion there is absolutely nothing to write about. While the actor awaits a nation-wide fame and public recognition and his colleague, actress and party official Peresvetova (Galina Tyunina) is suffocating under the weight of her work duties and after a memorable encounter with an Italian film director starts pondering over moving abroad.
The actors of Pyotr Fomenko's Workshop, led by film director Osipyan, carried the viewers albeit grotesquely portrayed, but eventful and lively 70s, when Boris Vakhtin, Sergey Dovlatov and Vasily Aksenov lived and worked in Russia, thus influencing the creation of the image of Osipyan’s Nikolaev.
The new Russian animated film “Buka, My Favorite Monster” directed by Viktor Glukhushin and Maxim Volkov came as a nice surprise to kids, teachers as well as school principals. An instructive eco-tale about mother nature that will punish anyone who abuses its benefits is a very relevant/timely message and an important agenda for schoolchildren who, when watching media content, do not always receive proper information on responsible consumption (especially taking into account that many of the parents still haven’t thought about it properly).
On the whole, the Russian Film Festival made an impression of albeit a small-scale, but at the same time capacious event, within the framework of which the organizers did their best to tell as much as possible about the latest Russian films - from instructive animation and a disaster film to auteur cinema and mini-series filmed on a smartphone. If not for the Russian Film Festival, these films - especially those that are not in wide distribution - would hardly have been screened in local cinemas. Films, such as Nika, designed for a sophisticated viewer, after which you keep waiting for more films by the new generation of Russian filmmakers who do not agree to hush up on painful and controversial topics.