At the last “Spirit of Fire,” director Alexander Veledinsky headed the jury of the competition for Russian debuts. The screenwriter of “The Brigade” and the director of “The Geographer Drank the Globe Away,” “The Abode” and “1993” knows firsthand what it’s like to make a first film, and then an even more important second one, and generally to stay in cinema: Veledinsky films less often than I would like to, but he carefully approaches each of his work, chooses a good novel as a primary source for it, or meticulously writes a script. However, he talks about all this himself - in a selection of quotes from various interviews.
Read the classics - from War and Peace to Quiet Don. There are answers there. But no one adheres to them: time passes, and people, having barely recovered from one tragedy, forget about its lessons and begin to shed blood again... The world is unfair, this is an axiom. The alternative to this is mercy.
"Film Distributor's Bulletin"
We must breathe the same way. When we wrote “The Brigade” - Sidorov, Porublev and I - and lived in the same room for two years, we communicated, understanding by our eyes what the other was thinking. So it was very easy for us. More precisely, it was difficult, of course, but there was a thrill in it, the ease of the relationship. We understood each other at a glance. Although at the same time we quarreled, swore, of course. Everything was, it was a living process. And nothing oppressed us, no one knew us, and we just did it all with ease. Everything that had accumulated was thrown out there.
"Real time"
We did not set out to record time. We simply recorded it. And the desire... Those who are really involved in cinema do not set themselves such a goal. This requires a huge conceit: I am the kind of creator who can record time. This is complete bullshit. No, we just lived at that time and wrote about that time. It was strange, it was different. And that’s why “The Brigade” turned out like this - a picture that is still being watched. It is about time, of course, about the time that the whole country experienced with us. We wrote the script in 2000, and it came out in 2002.
"Session"
In general, I don’t have a very good attitude towards nostalgia; personally, it prevents me from moving on. I may miss some specific people, my parents, my youth, but not the USSR or the 90s... Yes, such a trend is observed today, but it has replaced the previous trend - about the 60s, set by Valery's excellent series Todorovsky's "Thaw", for some reason skipping the 70s and 80s... Such attention to the 90s does not bother me at all, but only worries that there are few truly talented films and TV series about these times.
"Film Distributor's Bulletin"
It’s generally more difficult to film about good than about evil. How to make a character - a good person - three-dimensional? He must also be rewarded with negative traits that are unacceptable to someone, but not mean. Lesha Ivanov formulated it very well about Sluzhkin: in a situation where the hero must do meanness, he replaces meanness with disgusting. We followed this principle exactly in the film. In “Geographer...” there is a scene when a female colleague brings Sluzhkin home. But he doesn’t want to offend her and, due to his character, cannot say that he really loves his wife and does not want to cheat on her. And what does he do? He stupidly gets drunk and locks himself in the bathroom.
"Vedomosti"
Literature and cinema are not the same thing; they are woven from different substances. Yes, literature is more important and, I believe, gives more freedom to the reader. The movie shows you a very specific character, whom you may have imagined completely different when reading. Cinema is already a kind of violence against the viewer, imposing your vision on him.
"Film Distributor's Bulletin"
You need to strive for the level of Hollywood. Maybe there is no need to arrange a chase, but there is definitely something to learn from America. The main difference, in my opinion, between American cinema, which has conquered the whole world, and Russian cinema is that they film about survival. About what a person does for this. And we have a very Russian, very bias towards experiences. They have survival, we have experiences. And if we keep our “experiences” and add “survival”, then we will be able to compete with Hollywood.
TASS
Culture lasts a long time. There are films on sensitive topics that are also liked by people with different political views. Both Alexander Prokhanov and Alla Bossart wrote a positive review of the same “Abode”. This means that culture can be the substance that unites people and helps them find a common language. But, unfortunately, yes, the work of culture takes time. Both scoundrels and almost saints will watch the same film, and they will love it equally or hate it equally, but everyone will remain themselves after watching it.
"Vedomosti"
