RETROSPECTIVE 1: The works of Karen Shakhnazarov

In 2008, the Russian Resurrection Film Festival will be presenting two Retrospectives, exploring two very diverse but exciting areas of Russian filmmaking, from Soviet Russia onwards.

The first Retrospective will explore the work of one of the masters of the modern Russian filmmaking, Karen Shakhnazarov, whose career has spanned 25 years and continues to this date. This retrospective will be one of the most in-depth collections of any director's works to be screened at a foreign language film festival anywhere in the world.  Such a Retrospective will illustrate a historical sketch that starts with some of the more popular Soviet films made in the early and late 80's through the state backed Soviet film industry, and then follows the director through the social, political and life upheaval of Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Shakhnazarov’s career rode the waves to continue to produce ground breaking and highly popular films into the period known as Post-Soviet cinema in the 90’s, and has gone from strength to strength to create relevant and powerful Russian cinema to the present day.

The amazing and highly diverse collection of award winning and internationally acclaimed films Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov to be showcased at the Festival include We Are Jazz Men (1983), Courier (1987), Zero City (1988), The Assassin of the Tsar (1993), American Daughter (1995), Day of the Full Moon (1998) and Rider Named Death (2004).

As an extra bonus treat, his latest film, The Vanished Empire (2008), will be screening as a true highlight of the Festival. It reveals a heartfelt and fascinating study of student life in the 1970’s through the last years of the Soviet Union. As the culmination of his work to date, The Vanished Empire will represent the jewel in the crown of this extremely stimulating expose of one of Russia’s most celebrated Directors.

Karen Shakhnazarov Retrospective

1983
Comedy/Musical

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Igor Sklyar, Aleksandr Pankratov-Chyorny, Nikolai Averyushkin, Yelena Tsyplakova

Duration
89 minutes

Awards
Jury Prize
(1983 Grenoble Film Festival)

Shakhnazarov’s first feature, We Are Jazzmen was the No.1 Film at the Soviet Box Office in 1983. This high spirited zesty film, full of wit and charm, pays homage to the beginnings of jazz in Russia.  It follows the travails of a group of young jazz enthusiasts who head to Moscow to make it in the big time, over coming obstacle after obstacle to live their dreams. 

Shakhnazarov explains: “Jazzmen was a huge hit in Russia.  I suppose when it first appeared, jazz was a new theme. Not that Russians didn't know jazz, for it was already in the Soviet Union. But it always had an up-and-down history, sometimes forbidden, sometimes allowed. But to make a film about such things was very new. And to make a musical without political themes was even more new."

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1987
Comedy/Drama

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov
Starring: Fedor Dunaevsky,
Anastasia Nemolyaeva

Duration
88 minutes

Based on the novel of the same name by Karen Shakhnazarov, Courier is about a young high school graduate, Ivan Miroshnikov, who starts working as a courier in a publishing house for a literary magazine after he fails his exams. While delivering some documents, Ivan meets Katya and the two quickly fall in love.  Ivan develops a knack for using his charm to please those around him, but just as easily seems to end up in a horrible mess by his own foolhardiness.

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1988
Drama

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Leonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, Vladimir Menshov

Duration
103 min

Awards
Winner of the Bronze Rosa Camuna (1990) for Best Director at the Bergamo Film Meeting

Nominated for Best Production Design at the Nika Awards (1990)

One of the key films of the Perestroika era, Zero City tells the story of a Moscow engineer named Varakin who arrives in a small town with instructions to change the size of a locally manufactured air-conditioner part. He arrives at the company office and is welcomed by a naked secretary. Next, he finds himself sitting down to lunch. The dessert arrives, a cake that strongly resembles his own head, baked by a chef who soon shoots himself in the head. With its images of a burdensome past and an indeterminate future based on both folk tale and more modern forms of absurdism, Shakhnazarov's very funny and poignant film is a true historical touchstone.

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1993
Drama

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Oleg Yankovsky, Malcolm McDowell, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Andrey Krivitsky

Duration
104 minutes

Awards
Palm De Ore Nomination
(1993 Cannes Film Festival)

Best Actor, Oleg Yankovsky
(1993 Nika Awards)

Boasting an amazing array of actors including British born Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Heroes), The Assassin of the Tsar is a film about the assassination of Tzar Nikolay II and his family in the town of Ekaterinburg on the night of 16th June 1918.

Several decades pass and a patient at a mental hospital, who believes he is the assassin, begins to recount the events of that horrible night.

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1995
Comedy/Drama

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Alison Witbek, Vladimir Mashkov, Maria Shukshina, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan

Duration
98 minutes

Awards
Winner of Special Jury Prize
(1995 Shanghai International Film Festival)

A bittersweet road movie about a father and daughter looking to reconnect after a forced separation.

Varakin’s wife secretly leaves Russia for San Francisco, and marries a respectable American, taking their daughter Anyuta with her. Four years pass, and Varakin arrives in America to track down his beloved daughter, who after a touching reunion, together plan a secret escape.  Here starts their fascinating hitchhiking trip across America, packed with comical situations and moments of adventure.

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1998
Drama/Documentary

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Anna Germ, Andrey Panin, Eugeny Stychkin, Elena Koreneva, Valery Priyomykhov

Duration
93 minutes

Awards
FIPRESCI Prize
(1998 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

Crystal Globe Nomination (1998 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

Day of the Full Moon is a stunningly photographed series of vignettes from Russia past and present that summons the spirit of Max Ophuls’ 1950 classic La Ronde, and Robert Altman’s Nashville and Short Cutsto tell provocative and interconnecting stories.

During the full moon, three different people are captivated by a mysterious woman in a lilac dress.   The effects of this event ripple through the years, and grow to wash over more than 80 characters, from a disc jockey to a fairy princess to a gangster to Alexander Pushkin to a nostalgic dog. But which of these are dreams, and which represent reality?

Shakhnazarov continues his career-long focus on the intersection of past and present with this mysterious yet exhilarating mosaic of humankind, which in the end offers both seduction and satisfaction to the receptive viewer.

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2004
Drama/Thriller

Director
Karen Shakhnazarov

Starring
Andrey Panin, Dmitry Dyuzhev, Artyom Semakin, Ksenia Rappoport

Duration
106 minutes

Awards
Grand Prix Nomination
(2004 Montreal World Film Festival)

In 1904 Russia is shocked by a series of cruel and cold-blooded murders. Prominent government and military officials fall victim to terrorists, and neither their high position, nor their security efforts help them escape from the bold criminals. Confident of their infallibility and impunity, the terrorists start hunting members of the royal family. 

The film is based on the novel The Pale Horse by Boris Savinkov the Russian political figure who organised and took active part in a series of terror acts that convulsed Russia in the early 1900’s. He was arrested in 1906 and was condemned to death, but managed to escape from custody abroad.  He then performed subversive activities till 1924, when he was seized and imprisoned by the Soviet government, where, according to the official version, committed suicide in jail. 

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