Films by Sergei Loznitsa and Kirill Serebrennikov, where Marina starred, are shown in Cannes. And she has no housing in Moscow. Sometimes there is no money for basic necessities. Marina was filming with Serebrennikov, and her husband at that time was in prison. A year later, near Smolensk, his son died at the hands of a drunken friend. Marina became an actress late. She has no specialized education. She first appeared on the stage in a strict regime colony. In 2006 she received an award at the Kalina Krasnaya competition in prisons. Thanks to the arrival of a group from Teatr.doc to the colony, Marina’s dramatic talent was discovered.
Since 2015 she has been playing in Teatr.doc performances. She can be seen in “Viva, Vita!” and “Mamauidi” staged by Varvara Faer, with whom they made an autobiographical stand-up “Lear-Klesh” in 2015. Then Marina spoke about life in the women’s colony, read her poems and texts by Shakespeare, performed prison folklore. Playwright, director and director of Teatr.doc Elena Gremina staged with her “Human Rights Defenders” and “True Stories of Women, Men and Gods.” Marina herself staged at Teatre.doc “Two are not needed for tango” – about prison love. She conceived a play about women serving long sentences. Actress Yulia Aug invited Marina Klescheva to her play “Elsa” at the Taganka Theater for the role of the director of the choir Zinaida.
In the movie, she played a homeless woman in Call DiCaprio! Zhora Kryzhovnikova, the woman scolding the Germans in Andrei Zaitsev’s “Blockade Diary”, the Serious in “Meek” by Sergei Loznitsa, Aunt Iru, a neighbor in the “Text” by Klim Shipenko, the caretaker in the “Apprentice” by Kirill Serebrennikov, a doctor in his “Leta” during the medical examination he commands: “Spread the buttocks!”.
The shooting of the film “The Third Life of Marina Klescheva” continued for four years. Filmed at your own peril and risk, without money. Now we are working on editing.
Elena Demidova, like her heroine, changed a lot in the middle of her life: she graduated from the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman, and then she studied at the workshop of Marina Razbezhkina at the Internews film school, started making films. In 2016, she made her feature film debut, co-directing Touches of the Wind. Under her leadership, ordinary people make “movies from their own lives.”
“I changed everything in the middle of my life,” says Elena Demidova. – It was tough and difficult, although, of course, not as bright as Marina’s. She is a unique personality, a real heroine both in the human sense and in the sense of cinema. After serving many years in prison, having behind her life in a very dysfunctional environment, Marina is trying to change her life before our eyes and become an actress of theater and cinema. It grows into a completely different circle of people.
Marina’s first, ordinary life was cut short at the age of twenty, when she first went to prison. I got stupid, almost by accident: while some were fighting and sorting out the relationship, others committed a robbery behind their backs. They put everyone in prison. Then there was a short period of freedom – and again a prison, this time for a long time. It could be another story of a broken life, but Marina was lucky. In the Shakhovskoy colony, where she was serving time, people from Teatr.doc appeared and staged performances with the prisoners. Participation in the prison amateur performances helped her to leave the colony ahead of schedule. And then there was Serpukhov, working on the market, until Elena Gremina reappeared and invited me to the theater. Thus began the development of a new profession, the third life of Marina Klescheva.
– How did you meet?
– It happened when Teatr.doc began to move. He was kicked out of Tryokhprudny, and Nastya Patlai and I thought we had to shoot everything. Subbotniks began on Razgulyai, and I, as a chronicler, recorded everything, not understanding whether there would be a movie. I watched the play that Lena Gremina invented with the participation of Marina, who tells her life. And after some time, she invited her to the play “True Stories of Women, Men and Gods”, where Marina’s story was woven into ancient Greek myths.
I remember how she came to the theater’s birthday wearing rings and sang a song. Closer to summer, I suddenly realized that before my eyes a person was changing, passing from one life to another. “This is a subject for a movie,” I said to myself, and then turned to Marina: “Let me shoot about you”.
I drew attention to the fact that next to me there is a life that can become the subject of a movie. We filmed Marina from the very beginning of her new life. She flew for the first time on an airplane, for the first time she went on tour outside Russia. For the first time, she realized that helping can be selfless. There were times when Marina despaired, looked for work in Serpukhov. She still has a hard time living. The prison did not leave her life at all. The husband is still sitting.
– How open is the Marina? Doesn’t her mention her criminal record confused?
– She is ready to talk about it freely. She had an idea for workshops of hope to help one of the former inmates. The only thing that Marina does not like is when she is presented not as an actress, but as a person who has been in a colony, when it is as a label, evidence that she is interesting only for this. And Marina is a talented person. In the hands of a good director, she can do a lot. In Sergei Loznitsa’s “Meek” she is beautiful, as if she plays the role that is intended for her in this theater of the absurd. She always plays well with Serebrennikov.
– Will you have a story about the everyday life of the heroine?
– It will be a story about how a person changes – his face, eyes, thinking, how the process of transition from one life to another takes place, when the old life pulls back. It seems to be just scrambled out – and suddenly everyone who held it begins to die … Without Elena Gremina, Marina would have had nothing. And Lena leaves, and this pain is forever. Then – the tragedy with his son, who was strangled in the village at a disco.
We will show the change through episodes. Marina will have an ordinary life, and a theatrical one – not only performances, but people who come before and after performances, a husband who calls from prison …
During the filming of Andrei Zaitsev in the “Blockade Diary”, where Marina has a small role, some strange person came. She will also take part in the action in support of Kirill Serebrennikov. He is an important person to her. His first Marina was filmed. There will be a tour, a visit to the French embassy.
The main thing is that Marina is not afraid to be funny, ugly, she is not ashamed of her prison, if this is not turned into her only virtue, like in a zoo: she was in prison, and now she is playing. And when they say that a person has passed a difficult path, then this is a completely different story. It is important to talk about this, about how people such as Elena Gremina helped her.
– Marina has no acting education?
– No, but she knows how to learn, absorbs everything. We speak the same language. She directed the reading of the play “My War” by Alla Terekhova. I watched her rehearse. This story is about Gennady Kravtsov, who was imprisoned for espionage. He worked as a programmer for the FSB. He was cut. He sent a resume to the Swedes. His wife Alla took my course, made a movie about her life with him, when he was released. She wrote the play “My War” – about how he sat down, and she has two children and a third, an adult, from another marriage, and something must be done in order to live. It turned out to be a good play, and Marina staged it – for now, as a reading.
– In 2010, when the forests were burning, you went with a camera to the Ryazan region together with volunteers to the burning villages. And then the film “Lesha” appeared. You filmed it for a long time too – three years…
– Lesha, by the way, is no longer a hero. In the sense that if you go to him, then there will be no cinema. An ordinary life, an ordinary man. It’s important to catch the right moment. You can find a lot of interesting things, but the film will not be.
.