After winning the Moscow festival of auteur films, the Yakut film “Don’t Bury Me Without Ivan” by Lyubov Borisova received a diploma “For flying in a dream and in reality” at the Arctic International Film Festival “Golden Raven” in Anadyr. Filmmakers increasingly go to the other world, appeal to shamans, turn heroes into gulls and dogs, as was the case in one of the films of the Chukotka regional competition “Kinovzlet”, enter into a dialogue with the Girl with a scythe, as director Ivan Kharatyan did.
The very fact that the jury of the auteur film festival, headed by Alexei German, awarded the main award to the film “Don’t Bury Me Without Ivan” made a hypnotic impression on the filmmakers. In Anadyr, he was very much expected, but they experienced some disappointment.
The film is based on real events of 1910. Yakut laborer Stepan Beresekov periodically falls into a lethargic sleep. The clerk reads a prayer over the deceased, and he rises from the coffin. For fellow villagers, Stepan is like a ghost, and he would have been buried alive if it were not for the son of a Russian priest, ethnographer and founder of the Yakut fine arts, Ivan Popov.
Lyubov Borisova read an article about him and the idea for the film was born. The story is based on the stories of Popov’s descendants, his photographs, which we will see in the finale. Only Ivan could distinguish a lethargic dream from death, in which Stepan sees God, but his soul yearns for earthly beauty.
Some episodes were filmed in the homeland of Ivan Popov, in the Tattinsky district, where his house was found. One of the best Yakut cameramen Semyon Amanatov, known for the films 24 Snows, The King Bird, Lyubov Borisova’s debut work The Sun Doesn’t Set Over Me, worked on the picture. But now everything turned out too smart and sunny, without the right atmosphere.
Ivan Popov was played by the Lithuanian actor Darius Gumauskas from the Oscars Korshunovas Theater, who starred in Khabensky’s Sobibor, Ivan Bolotnikov’s Kharms and Palmyra – he became the producer of Don’t Bury Me Without Ivan. The choice in this case is not unconditional: the Russian here is like a European.
For the role of Stepan, a village teacher and an actor of the folk theater from the village of Nemyugyuntsy Alexander Chichakhov, who is said to be similar to his prototype, was invited. Another nugget lives in his village – an actor and director, but first of all, the deputy director of the school for science, local historian Prokopiy Nogovitsyn. For more than 25 years, he has been on expeditions with schoolchildren in search of potsherds, fossilized plants, jaws of ancient animals. Yakut schools are a forge of film shots. One Dmitry Davydov, a former primary school teacher, now a world-famous cinematographer, is worth it.
“Velga” by Anastasia Nechaeva is based on an early story by Bunin, but everything happens today. A beautiful girl lives on the shores of the North Sea. Her role was played by the beautiful and gentle actress Olga Bodrova. Her heroine is in love with a childhood friend, as if discharged from city life. When Snow, the elder sister of Velga, arrives in these parts, the familiar world will collapse. Olga Bodrova really wanted to play this role, she understood how to dissolve, because her father Sergei Bodrov left just like that, merging with nature. Olya was then four years old. However, the producers were skeptical. This is the case when a well-known surname becomes an obstacle.
The film was shot in the Murmansk region, and every time it was a mystery what nature would prepare. “My family is from the north of the Arkhangelsk region,” says Anastasia Nechaeva. – I also picked lingonberries, sailed in a boat on the White Sea. I have been living with Velga since childhood. We wanted to become a legend. Velga turned into Bunin’s seagull, and I added a little paganism. Velga dissolved, feeling that she was not needed.
The film is dedicated to my sister who drowned. Her body could not be found, and then my aunt offered to bury the dress. She came to shoot with my sister, who lives in London, sobbed when she saw the film. As a debutant, I put a lot of personal into it. Debutants, as a rule, make honest films. After that, I got stronger. It became easier for me to move on.”
Sergei Shakurov, who starred as a former judge, was struck by the local cemetery. The wind constantly blows sand there, so that coffins and bones were visible. The locals then filled in the graves. The role of the shaman was played by Evgenia Mandzhieva, who once starred in the Kalmyk film “The Seagulls” by Ella Manzheeva. He made a strong impression on Anastasia Nechaeva and, apparently, contributed to the appearance of her own painting.
The Special Jury Prize in Anadyr went to the Norwegian film “Everybody Hates Johan” by Hallvar Vitso, who was nominated for an Oscar with the short film “Across the Atlantic” and received a special mention from the jury in Cannes. Johan has had a passion for pyrotechnics since childhood thanks to his parents who blew up bridges. They died in the line of duty, and the boy was left an orphan.
All his life he loves the girl next door, who will become disabled through his fault, again because of the passion for explosions. Johan was played by the colorful actor Paul Sverre Walheim, known from the film Kon-Tiki. The script was written by the writer Erlend Lu, whose novels have been translated into Russian. What is his “Best Country in the World” worth, where a Norwegian journalist writes a guide to Finland, which he has never been to. The picture turned out to be unusual, with a special Norwegian humor and slightly ridiculous characters.
A recent graduate of VGIK Ivan Kharatyan presented in the short program “Golden Crow” “Girl with a scythe.” One of the producers of the picture was Ivan’s father Dmitry Kharatyan, and the main roles were played by Anton Shagin and Yulia Khlynina.
A journalist enters a dying man’s hospital room to add to his collection of celebrity dying remarks and “remnants of human dignity.” There he will meet with a beauty, in which you do not immediately recognize the Girl with a scythe. Death will begin to haunt the celebrity hunter, the situation will be absurd and a little invented. But for representatives of a famous family, probably, all this is a reality.