Persons of Action

March 04, Saturday, 16:30, Yugra Classic Press Room Russia / 2023 / 52 min./ 12+ Director and producer Vladimir Golovnev The Timchenko Foundation presents a documentary project about people who have transformed the place where they live. Short stories about five “heroes of our time” are put together like a kaleidoscope. After watching them you want to follow the protagonists’ example and make the world around a better place. The innovation of social documentary filmmaking is shooting short films as fiction films, by observing the protagonist. And the focus is not only on the “person of action”, the passionarian individual, but on his homeland itself and the community of people in the protagonist’s orbit.

“The dramatic composition of the protagonist moments, how he or she overcomes the difficulties, the climax and the finale just “came naturally”, and the audience will be surprised by the unusual presentation of documentary content, without the “classic” interviews with the protagonist and the voiceover narration. My team and I were not guided by an example – it is all totally new, it was an experiment, a search for a new format,” says Vladimir Golovnev, director and producer of the series, member of the Russian Filmmakers Union. “This is an upcoming model that has a promising future,” adds Maria Morozova, CEO of the Timchenko Foundation. Producing socially-oriented content is a very time-consuming process, mainly because it is very difficult to make a credible product that will be accepted by viewers, without ‘squeezing out tears’ and resorting to clichés. Competition for the viewer’s attention is fairly high now, and only high-quality content with a heartfelt real-life story can keep the viewers’ attention and inspire them to act and make change. VLADIMIR GOLOVNEV Vladimir was born in 1982. He graduated from the Omsk State University as a history researcher and from the Independent School of Film and Television “Internews” as a film director (class of Vladimir Fenchenko and Marina Razbezhkina). He directed such short films as” Two Childhoods” (2015), “Letsplay” (2019), “Glad to See You” (2020), and the full-length documentary “The Long Shot” (2022).