Text: Inga Shepeleva
On screens leaves a new film by Alexei German Jr.’s “iron curtain” of a few days in the life of a writer. The picture promises not only an interesting and complex story of life of literary superstar, and immersion in the life of the Soviet people 70 years of XX century, from the proletariat to the elite.
For the filming team of Alexei German Jr. took a multi-storey building on the Petrograd side with a wide pre-revolutionary stairs. The corridors of the former communal apartments were brought to the aesthetic apogee of the efforts of artists, headed by Elena Trench.
Serbian actor Milan Maric was selected as the Director for the lead role of Sergei Dovlatov: “of course, I came from some kind of likeness. In Russia I such person is not found, began to look around the world. The actor was supposed to be strong, beautiful. Dovlatov loved women, so set it high. Needed male energy, power of inner. I don’t know whether Dovlatov a sex symbol or not. I’m not a woman. I know that his first wife was the Belle of Leningrad, ran all the guys, but she went to a young poor guy. As they walked down the street, I turned after them. He had a long tragic story of his wife Elena. They made many trips back and forth, but nevertheless lived a very long life.”
According to the producer of a film Alexey Savelyev, during the trial has been viewed more than two and a half thousand people: “of Course, in the picture there are famous faces: Kozlovsky, Khodchenkova, Pegova, Shahin. But I can say that Herman spit on their fame, he was guided by other criteria. Even if we are talking about real characters, in addition to the portrait likeness was very important to the inner world of the actor corresponded to his character. So, how does Alexei German, is not working no more, he is not afraid to take on very heavy tasks. Unique Director.”
Alexey Savelyev reveals the scale of the film: “the Whole movie is the plot just a few days, Nov,’ 71. And of course, it must be a revolutionary party — 7 Nov. We blocked the street, remade squares, decorated buildings everywhere hung portraits of Lenin, Marx and Stalin. The inhabitants of St. Petersburg of the older generation came to look at it all and said as if a time machine were in their childhood, youth. I do not know anyone else today shot such scenes with a huge amount of extras and such a large scale. In order to take it all down, we turned off the backlight on the two banks of the Neva river between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace. Changed the bulbs on the lights (before was white), blocked traffic, let the old cars, the real, the living Volga, Muscovites, Cossacks, and a huge number of extras. We did it all manually: closed glazing special pads, changed the balcony, removed all ads, hung their huge signs: “Meat-fish”, “Shop”. And we specially built a subway line to a depth of a mile, filmed at the Baltic shipyard, and its Director was impressed that we picked 400 kg of paint and one day icebreaker repainted along with the forests. This characterizes our work, its scale, quality and speed”.
The role of each Dovlatov, a failed artist and black marketeer, went to Danila Kozlovsky. The film also played Svetlana Hodchenkova, Elena Lyadova, Anton Shagin, Helena Sujecka, Peter Gasowski, Mary Arsenhole. The premiere will take place in spring 2017.
