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Award-winning director fears six months of work on Yuri Arabov-scripted movie may have been wasted

Russian film-makers have been forced to halt production on a new movie due to the political turmoil in Crimea.

In comments first noted by the Hollywood Reporter, award-winning director Andrei Proshkin said on his Facebook page that production on the film Orlean had been halted with immediate effect. The feature, written by Yuri Arabov, the winner of the prize for best screenplay at the 1999 Cannes film festival, had been due to shoot in the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula but is now shrouded in uncertainty.

"Six months of pre-production, selection of locations, preliminary work on location in February, when there were still no signs that the current events in Crimea could occur – all that went down the drain," complained Proshkin, who won best director at the Moscow film festival for his previous film Orda (The...

Revisionism is king in Russia today, as it appears even the country's most famous artists aren't safe from state-sponsored "straight-washing."

That's the opinion of some historians and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (Lgbt) advocates chagrined to hear that an upcoming film may be glossing over the sexual orientation of one of the nation's most famous 19th century composers.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the man who wrote the music for such iconic ballets "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker," is getting the biopic treatment in his motherland, but his private life may be running afoul of Russia's controversial new laws banning Lgbt propaganda.

“It is absolutely not a fact that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual,” acclaimed screenwriter Yuri Arabov told Russian newspaper Izvestia, according to a translation by The Huffington Post. “Only philistines think this.”

Arabov added that in his script Tchaikovsky is portrayed as a man who is upset by false rumors of his homosexuality,...

A film that came out in 2005 to rave reviews during the Berlin Film Festival and is finally out on DVD here in the U.S. 5 years later sounds like an adventure all its own, but this is what happened to Aleksandr Sokurov’s ‘The Sun’. Add to that already ardent fact is it is a film about the Japanese dictator Emperor Hirohito and his last days in power before Japan surrendered to the Allies in World War II, mostly set in the basement bunker of the Imperial Palace.

Hirohito (Issey Ogata) is a bit insane and suffers from dementia. He needs constant reminding of his divinity (being one with God was why the people believed he was ordained in the first place) and he’s almost childlike, needing servants to dress him and they are shocked to see this once worshipped ‘deity’ believes he’s not “Tenno” (Heavenly Emperor), but...

Moscow -- Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov's "Yuri's Day" was awarded the $40,255 Grand Prix award at the 24th Warsaw International Film Festival, which wrapped Sunday in the Polish capital.

Written by Yuri Arabov, the Russia-Germany co-production centers on prosperous opera diva Lyubov, who travels with her son to her hometown of Yuriev, about 200 kilometers from Moscow, to bid a symbolic farewell before moving to Germany.

The jury special prize went to "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner" by Stefan Komandarev, jointly produced by Bulgaria, Germany, Slovenia and Hungary.

The main prize of the festival's 1-2 program for first- and second-time directors went to the Danish film "Go With Peace, Jamil," directed by Omar Shargawi. The Free Spirit Award went to Uros Stojanovic's Serbian-French co-production "Tears for Sale."...

MOSCOW -- Director Alexander Proshkin, known for the Soviet-era hit "Cold Summer of 1953" and such big-budget adaptations of classic Russian literature as Alexander Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter", has begun lensing "The Miracle".

Slated for a 2009 premiere, the film is Proshkin's fourth collaboration with Central Partnership, Russia's largest indie producer/distributor. The film revolves around an alleged incident in 1956 Samara, in which a young woman who danced with a religious icon was frozen into immobility. Screenwriter Yuri Arabov penned the screenplay.

The production began filming Saturday in the Tula region near Moscow.