On Movie Day of the Year, our film "Good Boy" was shown in Hermitage Park on a huge inflatable screen. The sound was broadcasted to the audience with headphones. It was very funny and unusual to see how people sitting on pouffes, on benches and on the grass in complete silence suddenly begin to giggle in sync. The Minister of Culture came to the screening, and I was a little dizzy from the success.
Once in a restaurant we were showing the first film of our film company "Rehearsals" to the distributors. Several industry professionals gathered together. It was a very important day for me. I still had very little knowledge of film-making, and I needed a response from those people who did. Oksana Karas was both the screenwriter and director of this film. When the screening was over, the distributors came up to me and gave me their authoritative opinion. One said: "Oksana is a very cool screenwriter. So well put together in the script. I was even surprised how cleverly all the lines are intertwined in the story. But unfortunately, she's a very weak director." I listened with interest to all the arguments. After a minute, another hireling came up and said: "Oksana is a terrific director. But she absolutely does not know how to write a script. It was the first, but by no means the last case, confirming that in our wonderful industry there has never been, is not and will never be a consensus about anything.
When we came with the film "Russia 88" to the Berlin Film Festival, they didn't even call me on stage. It was strange to sit watching the film and thinking only about one thing - at what point did I take a wrong turn? Since then I've been going on stage myself and deciding who to call and who not to call.
When we showed "Russia 88" in Moscow, Alexander Rodnyansky deliberately rented the smallest hall possible. There were some very famous people from the industry at the screening: critics, producers, directors. It was terribly crowded for them, many of them sat on the steps and stood by the screen. Alexander Yefimovich knows how to create a stir. Everyone had an exhilarating feeling of some kind of underground event. This is skill.
Recently I was at one premiere. I purposely decided not to arrive in advance, but right on time. I was even a bit late. But the premiere didn't even think about starting. Guests lingered in the hall, telling tall tales, and munching on popcorn out of idleness. In about forty minutes the band came on stage and the speeches began. A producer, a director, an actor, another producer, an actor, and another producer, and the same actor again. When an hour had already passed from the moment I arrived in the auditorium, I suddenly realized that I was absolutely not ready to watch another two hours of any kind of movie, and I went home to my kids. I guess the makers were pretty happy with their premiere.
When we were at the Russian Film Days in Mumbai, it was the first time I came across the fact that in Indian cinemas every session starts with a hymn. They start it with a clip of patriotic Indian soldiers marching and standing in front of snow-covered rocks. Maybe they change these commercials, but in those days they only played this one.
I loved watching old silent movies with live music. One such session was remembered with the participation of Alexey Aigi's ensemble. The musicians accompanied Boris Barnett's movie "The Girl with the Box". I think some sessions in the early twentieth century were quite incendiary thanks to the talent of the tapestry. By the way, think about it. A modern film always has one soundtrack (different languages don't count). But one show you come to, and people are laughing, and at another show of the same movie - sitting like water in the mouth. And the artist's energy has never been cancelled. He always knows how to get the audience fired up. Improvisation always adjusts to the audience. It's very likely that there were some very interesting live sessions in those years. One can only speculate about that.
I once showed a film to a fairly well-known producer. It was in his office. Instead of watching it, the producer spent the whole film sneering and asking stupid questions. And he laughed at his own jokes, which had nothing to do with the humor of the film. There was a full feeling that the man was under the influence of some drugs. And for a long time already. I have never seen more idiocy and boorishness in the industry. You can assume that the material was bad or not ready, but it was not. The film was quite ready (the last draft version), and its further fate at festivals and in the digital distribution suggests that it was a success. This is our Happy Ending (rated 7.2 on Kinopoisk).
I met a girl once. We chatted about movies we liked. Among other directors I liked, I named Jim Jarmusch. I really liked his "Broken Flowers" at the time, and I said so. A girl suggested we go see Jarmusch's new film, The Limits of Control. I happily supported it. When we went to see the film at the Roland, there was practically no audience. The movie turned out to be as beautiful as it was boring. We looked at each other, and I kissed my future wife for the first time
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