Every year, at the very beginning of spring, film writers go to Khanty-Mansiysk for the Spirit of Fire, an international debut film festival that was started by Sergei Solovyov almost a quarter of a century ago and continued by Emir Kusturica after his departure.
One of the world’s main venues for young people, Paolo Sorrentino (director of the films “The Great Beauty”, “The Young Pope”, etc.) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Birdman”, “Bitch Love”, etc.) showed their first films here. This year she was expecting filmmakers from Iran, Great Britain, Canada, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, Thailand, Colombia, India, Singapore…
We flew from Vnukovo with the entire international staff – the Boeing was fully chartered for the festival crowd. My colleague and I were particularly lucky: fortunately, we rushed with discipline to the early check–in, announced six hours before the flight, and found ourselves in the very front row where we could stretch our legs freely. And in a wonderful neighborhood with Maria Zvereva, the vice-president of the festival, Milos Bikovich, the audience’s favorite (and mine too after the TV series “Give a Show!”, where he proved himself to be a very cool artist), the artist Sergei Tsygal and Leonid Yakubovich, the nationally known TV presenter. He didn’t stop talking for a minute, gushing with ideas, impressions, and thoughts (distracted only by tomato juice and writing poetry). I have never met such an energetic, cheerful and absolutely young man who does not match the date of birth in his passport so much! Yakubovich plays in the theater, writes books, and pilots a helicopter –it’s a pity that the general public knows him only from his famous “Field of Miracles.”
…From spring Moscow, we flew into the classic Yugra winter with snowdrifts and dry air sparkling in the sun (I swear, nowhere is it so easy and “delicious” to breathe as here!). Khanty-Mansiysk is love from the first trip. A white city surrounded by taiga, where for some reason there is never gray or dirty snow – only boiling white, and black glasses are necessary. Where there are no tedious human flows, but there are rare figures walking separately. Where children and teenagers are amazing, who you see not with gadgets in their hands, but with sports equipment, musical instruments and books; that’s what it means – 75 child development centers in a small town…
The opening ceremony of the XXIII “Spirit of Fire” took place, as always, at the Ugra-Classic concert center; lights burned in bowls along the red carpet. And as always, President Emir Kusturica and Governor of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug Ruslan Kukharuk clapped a cinematic firecracker in four hands, announcing the opening of the festival.
The ceremony was led by TV presenter Daria Zlatopolskaya and Milos Bikovic, who looked unusual in a strict suit and tie. Throughout the evening, music from the cinema was played – familiar melodies accompanied information about the programs (“Film-in-progress”, which involves projects in production, “Debut – short meter”, international competition, children’s program “Your Cinema”, competition of Russian debuts). And the appearance of Kusturica on the stage was accompanied by the swashbuckling “Chiki-riki Bubamara” from his famous painting “Black Cat, White Cat”.
The impression was somewhat spoiled by the sudden replacement of the opening film, and “by default” there was no explanation. The day before, the program featured “The Most Valuable Cargo,” a poignant animation by Oscar winner Michel Hazanavicius from last year’s Cannes competition. Stylized as a silent movie (the narrator in the original is Jean–Louis Trintignant, in the Russian box office – Alexander Petrov) and with a fabulous beginning: “Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter with his wife in a dark forest.” While collecting firewood, the forester’s childless wife finds a baby in a snowdrift – a little girl thrown from a train going to Auschwitz… At that time, I thought the world had gone crazy if the Anora checkpoint was given the Palme d’Or, and nothing happened to this masterpiece.
Instead of animation about the Holocaust, Ilya Kazankov’s lyrical comedy “Captain of the Fourth Rank” turned out to be the opening film.
…Festivals are great, but you get very tired and don’t have time for anything – competitive, non-competitive, and “special-show” shows are shown at four different city venues. And everything is divorced in such a way that if you go there, you don’t have time to come here. A typical example from the second day of the festival: at the Center for Gifted Children of the North at 19.00 – “The Wind” by Sergey Chliyants according to the script by Lutsik and Samoryadov, which should not be missed (they forgot about the creative meeting with Bikovich, taking place at the same time at Ugra Classic!); it lasts two hours, therefore, I can’t move to the Museum of Geology, Oil and Gas for “Dad died on Saturday” (8.30 pm), but I can stay here for “Summer is Coming” (9.30 pm). But the “Wind” blows you off your feet so much that you can’t watch anything after it.
Just think, the script was written in the early 90s, and the first phrase: “There must be a war!” and so on: “Everyone honors himself, what do we care about others?” It’s heavy, drawn out (a lot of unnecessary details and scenes), and very colorful from a camerawork point of view. It mixes dystopia, parableism, realism, as well as a wagon and a small cart of references. “The main character Ivan either sleeps for days until he is completely impoverished, or goes “for prey” and kills – what is this, a new Russian fairy–tale archetype?!” I hissed indignantly. And Kusturica, who was sitting right behind me, said softly towards the end: “This is an anti-Christian film.”
Indeed, in no horror movie is there such a terrible and long murder scene (of Germans taking tetanus vaccine to this steppe wilderness)! By morning, I had come to my senses: I decided to consider “The Wind” a bitter, prolonged pill and still a subject of cinema art.
It’s unrealistic to watch fifty films in four days, but there are also business and educational programs (I managed to look at a workshop for teenagers by Maria Golubkina), as well as entertainment and excursions prepared by the organizers. By the way, we had a nice holiday on March 8. First, we were taken to the taiga (more precisely, to the suburbs on the banks of the Irtysh) with dog riding (huskies are very friendly and really eager to get into their sleds) and deer (and these are very timid – they shy away from an outstretched hand and do not want to be stroked. “Are they being mistreated?” “No, it’s just that they’ve just been brought 600 km away, they haven’t left the road yet.” – “But what about your annual reindeer herder’s festival?”–”And they bring you there. Deer don’t take root here, our hilly terrain doesn’t suit them”).
Straight from the taiga (timing!) They took him to a festive concert of Phonograph-Symphonic Jazz under the direction of Sergei Zhilin, and he was already rocking with might and main – he kept jumping out from behind the piano, dancing up to the band and even sang a Detective song from the Bremen Town Musicians:
“I’ll even find a pimple.”
On the elephant’s body.
And the nose is like a dog’s,
And an eye like an eagle’s.
The master of the piano began to sing – apparently, the long-term cooperation with the “Voice” on Channel One was not in vain.
At the closing of the festival, the announcement /presentation of prizes took place to the live sound of the Ugra Symphony Orchestra, which looked very worthy. Kusturica, it seems, has never looked so elegant – he took to the stage in an embroidered white tunic to present his presidential prize to young director Kirill Sultanov (“Summer is Coming”). By this time, the film had already won the audience award, which Sultanov was sincerely happy about: “The two most important prizes are ours!”.
Sergei Chliyants received the Golden Taiga award named after Sergei Solovyov for the best domestic debut film for “The Wind” (20 years ago, he received an award here as the producer of “Boomer”). Promising Kusturica to “cut out one frame” in front of hundreds of witnesses (I suspect the one where the hero violently throws the icon out of the house). The award “For the best male role” named after Alexander Abdulov was awarded to Oleg Vasilkov (the talkative partner of the main character) from the same “Wind”. Although, according to many, this film deserves an award for its incomparable cinematography (Danila Goryunkov), but at festivals they tend to give all the sisters earrings, and the “Best cinematography” went to another film.…
Khanty–Mansiysk – Moscow
