Fighting for survival in the wild in Siberia Mon Amour
The Russian Resurrection Film Festival opened at Sydney’s Chauvel Cinema on August 30.
Festival director Nikolas Maksymow has been at the helm of the largest Russian film festival outside Russia since its inception in 2003. This year the festival will present 25 recent and classical movies in all main Australian cities during September.
The grand opening in Sydney on Thursday night kicked off the festival program with Spy, the Utopian spy-thriller of Moscow 1941, screened with English subtitles. The Chauvel Cinema, formerly the Paddington Town Hall ballroom, could barely accommodate all its guests.
Strathfield MP Charles Casuscelli opened the festival saying: “We should not underestimate the power of films in breaching the borders between cultures”.
Opening night finished with a great afterparty at World Square Rydges in traditional Russian style with vodka, lots of Russian food and dancing till very late. The event was a chance for Australian guests to communicate with Russian actors and filmmakers who brought this year’s Russian blockbusters downunder.
They also had the chance to learn the difference between the steam punk and diesel punk genres and to get tips from the actors on the most highly recommended movies.
The event was sold out, an indication of the renewed wave of interest in Russian film.
“This year our selection of films covers the grand scope of contemporary film making in Russia: 25 superb Russian national films offering a wide range of genres to cater to the most discerning cinematic tastes,” festival director Maksymow said.
Among the films to be screened are Vysotsky, a movie about Russia’s answer to Bob Dylan – the iconic Soviet musician and poet Vladimir Vysotsky. The most successful Russian box office film of 2011-2012, it was written by Vysotsky’s son Nikita and directed by Pyotr Buslov.
And Siberia Mon Amour (Dir Slava Ross, 2011) a film in which the sublime power of the landscape dominates people living on the edge as they fight to cling to civilisation in the wild surrounded by wild dogs. Set in the majestic and austere beauty of Siberia, this highly-esteemed and complex survival drama about an old man who lives in a deserted village and his relationship with his grandson has both humour and pathos.
Audiences will welcome the chance to catch the multi-award winning film There Once Lived a Simple Woman, and the hauntingly powerful crime thriller Home which features a stellar cast and remarkable situations.
Russia’s future and the classic Russian conflict between intellectuals and the rich and powerful is superbly explored in the romantic drama Two Days,
Gromozeka is a bittersweet drama that looks at the parallel lives of former band members 20 years on and how their lives then continue to intersect.
Festival favourite Shakhnazarov returns with a remarkable war flick, White Tiger, a mystical tale about an indestructible Nazi tank, and Match tells a rale of love, football and war based on a true wartime story.
There’s a feast of acclaimed comedies to enjoy as well, and the 2012 festival features not one, but two retrospectives – classic Chekhov screen adaptations The Duel and Mikhalkov’s much loved Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano which complement the new romantic interlude about Chekhov.
There are classics marking the bicentenary of the great victory of 1812. An eagerly awaited cinema event is an all-day marathon screening of Bondarchuk’s Oscar winning epic War & Peace.
Russian Resurrection 2012 runs in Sydney until September 12; in Melbourne from September 5 to 16; Brisbane from September 7 to 16; in Canberra from September 14 to 19, and Perth from September 19 to 26.
