Russian multi-hyphenate Fedor Bondarchuk was riding high after a series of blockbuster hits when Hollywood came calling in 2014. Fresh off the domestic success of his alien invasion movie “Attraction,” and the World War II epic “Stalingrad,” Warner Bros. tapped him to direct a big-budget movie based on Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey.”
But then a devastating economic crisis hit Russia, and the deal unraveled, with Bondarchuk deciding he couldn’t decamp to Hollywood at a time when his own country was reeling. It was a prescient move. Six years later, the domestic market in Russia is booming, international sales are growing by leaps and bounds, and Bondarchuk’s Art Pictures Studio has become one of the country’s more formidable production houses.
Before the coronavirus pandemic struck, 2020 was shaping up to be a banner year for Bondarchuk, who recently signed with CAA. The sci-fi thriller “Sputnik,” which Art Pictures produced with Vodorod Pictures,...
But then a devastating economic crisis hit Russia, and the deal unraveled, with Bondarchuk deciding he couldn’t decamp to Hollywood at a time when his own country was reeling. It was a prescient move. Six years later, the domestic market in Russia is booming, international sales are growing by leaps and bounds, and Bondarchuk’s Art Pictures Studio has become one of the country’s more formidable production houses.
Before the coronavirus pandemic struck, 2020 was shaping up to be a banner year for Bondarchuk, who recently signed with CAA. The sci-fi thriller “Sputnik,” which Art Pictures produced with Vodorod Pictures,...
- 6/8/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Stars: Vitaliy Khaev, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Evgeniya Kregzhde, Mikhail Gorevoy, Elena Shevchenko, Igor Grabuzov, Aleksandr Domogarov, Ilya Gavrilenkov, Vasiliy Kopeikin | Written and Directed by Kirill Sokolov
Do you remember The Raid? If you’ve seen it you probably won’t ever forget it. Now imagine taking the brutality and physical violence of that film and transpose it to one apartment and only a handful of people. That’s Why Don’t You Just Die! in a nutshell.
The film tells the story of Matvei, who ends up at the door of corrupt detective Andrei after his resentful daughter asks Matvei to kill him for her. The reason? She claims that her father has repeatedly raped her since she was a child. Now Matvei does what every longing boyfriend would, he says yes. Only Matvei doesn’t bank on things going south quite so fast. He also didn’t bank on Andrei fighting back,...
Do you remember The Raid? If you’ve seen it you probably won’t ever forget it. Now imagine taking the brutality and physical violence of that film and transpose it to one apartment and only a handful of people. That’s Why Don’t You Just Die! in a nutshell.
The film tells the story of Matvei, who ends up at the door of corrupt detective Andrei after his resentful daughter asks Matvei to kill him for her. The reason? She claims that her father has repeatedly raped her since she was a child. Now Matvei does what every longing boyfriend would, he says yes. Only Matvei doesn’t bank on things going south quite so fast. He also didn’t bank on Andrei fighting back,...
- 4/16/2020
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
If you consider running-time alone, Russian content fills a considerable chunk of space in the official sections of the 2020 Berlinale.
This is primarily because of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s mind-boggling large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system, the “Dau” project, which comprises 14 features — two are unspooling at Berlin, accounting for more than eight hours of screen time. “Dau. Natasha,” clocking in at two hours and 19 minutes, premieres in competition.
Described by the Dau website as “a tale of violence that is as radical as it is provocative,” it follows two waitresses in a top-secret Soviet scientific institute who strike up a cautious friendship when one is seduced by a foreign visitor, until the ministry of state security intervenes.
Meanwhile, the Berlinale Special title “Dau. Degeneratsia” has a running time of just over six hours. The story unfolds at the same institute shown in “Natasha,” where scientific and occult experiments aimed at...
This is primarily because of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s mind-boggling large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system, the “Dau” project, which comprises 14 features — two are unspooling at Berlin, accounting for more than eight hours of screen time. “Dau. Natasha,” clocking in at two hours and 19 minutes, premieres in competition.
Described by the Dau website as “a tale of violence that is as radical as it is provocative,” it follows two waitresses in a top-secret Soviet scientific institute who strike up a cautious friendship when one is seduced by a foreign visitor, until the ministry of state security intervenes.
Meanwhile, the Berlinale Special title “Dau. Degeneratsia” has a running time of just over six hours. The story unfolds at the same institute shown in “Natasha,” where scientific and occult experiments aimed at...
- 2/27/2020
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Stars: Vitaliy Khaev, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Evgeniya Kregzhde, Mikhail Gorevoy, Elena Shevchenko, Igor Grabuzov, Aleksandr Domogarov, Ilya Gavrilenkov, Vasiliy Kopeikin | Written and Directed by Kirill Sokolov
Do you remember The Raid? If you’ve seen it you probably won’t ever forget it. Now imagine taking the brutality and physical violence of that film and transpose it to one apartment and only a handful of people. That’s Why Don’t You Just Die! in a nutshell.
The film tells the story of Matvei, who ends up at the door of corrupt detective Andrei after his resentful daughter asks Matvei to kill him for her. The reason? She claims that her father has repeatedly raped her since she was a child. Now Matvei does what every longing boyfriend would, he says yes. Only Matvei doesn’t bank on things going south quite so fast. He also didn’t bank on Andrei fighting back,...
Do you remember The Raid? If you’ve seen it you probably won’t ever forget it. Now imagine taking the brutality and physical violence of that film and transpose it to one apartment and only a handful of people. That’s Why Don’t You Just Die! in a nutshell.
The film tells the story of Matvei, who ends up at the door of corrupt detective Andrei after his resentful daughter asks Matvei to kill him for her. The reason? She claims that her father has repeatedly raped her since she was a child. Now Matvei does what every longing boyfriend would, he says yes. Only Matvei doesn’t bank on things going south quite so fast. He also didn’t bank on Andrei fighting back,...
- 8/26/2019
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
A sinister spirit with a crimson-stained past lurks through the halls of a private boarding school in Queen of Spades: Through the Looking Glass. Directed by Aleksandr Domogarov from a screenplay by Maria Ogneva, the Russian horror film will make its North American premiere this August at the Popcorn Frights film festival, and we've been provided with the movie's chilling trailer to share with Daily Dead readers!
Queen of Spades: Through the Looking Glass will screen at Popcorn Frights on Tuesday, August 13th. Visit the film's Popcorn Frights page to learn more about its North American premiere, check out the official trailer and images from the film below, and check here to catch up on all of our Popcorn Frights coverage.
Festival synopsis: "In this Guillermo del Toro inspired gothic frightener, something ominous haunts the darkened hallways of a boarding school with a particularly troubling past. The sinister ghost of...
Queen of Spades: Through the Looking Glass will screen at Popcorn Frights on Tuesday, August 13th. Visit the film's Popcorn Frights page to learn more about its North American premiere, check out the official trailer and images from the film below, and check here to catch up on all of our Popcorn Frights coverage.
Festival synopsis: "In this Guillermo del Toro inspired gothic frightener, something ominous haunts the darkened hallways of a boarding school with a particularly troubling past. The sinister ghost of...
- 7/18/2019
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Timur Bekmambetov’s first outing as a director since his Hollywood film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter sees him going back in time again to the beginning of the First World War at the end of 1914.
Yolki 1914 is the fourth instalment of Bekmambetov’s New Year hit comedy franchise Yolki, which his production-distribution company Bazelevs launched in 2010.
Bekmambetov directed the first Yolki (aka The Six Degrees Of Celebration), which took $26m at the box office in the Cis territories in 2010/11.
Since then, Bekmambetov has only served as the producer on the following two Yolki films.
The first sequel Yolki 2012 – which posted $30m at the Cis box office in 2011/12 – took place on New Year’s Eve in 11 cities from small regional towns to Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and was directed by Dmitry Kiselev, Alexander Kott, Oksana Bychkova and others.
Kiselev, Kott, Alexander Karpilovsky and Olga Kharina directed the episodes of the third film Yolki 2014 which was released on Dec...
Yolki 1914 is the fourth instalment of Bekmambetov’s New Year hit comedy franchise Yolki, which his production-distribution company Bazelevs launched in 2010.
Bekmambetov directed the first Yolki (aka The Six Degrees Of Celebration), which took $26m at the box office in the Cis territories in 2010/11.
Since then, Bekmambetov has only served as the producer on the following two Yolki films.
The first sequel Yolki 2012 – which posted $30m at the Cis box office in 2011/12 – took place on New Year’s Eve in 11 cities from small regional towns to Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and was directed by Dmitry Kiselev, Alexander Kott, Oksana Bychkova and others.
Kiselev, Kott, Alexander Karpilovsky and Olga Kharina directed the episodes of the third film Yolki 2014 which was released on Dec...
- 3/11/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Gloss
Hong Kong International Film Festival
HONG KONG -- In what is sure to be viewed as a Russian spin on The Devil Wears Prada, director Andrei Konchalovsky (Sibiriada, Runaway Train) turns an only partially jaundiced eye at the modern fixation on celebrity and fashion.
This is somewhat outdated and well-worn material, and explorations of the encroachment of Western celebrity culture on developing nations isn't new either. On top of that, a good amount of the film relies on tired character archetypes. Although cinematically polished and possessing an engaging lead, Gloss never manages to take flight as an effective satire.
Any film skewering the fashion industry and what was once called The Jet Set is likely to get attention from independent and Art House distributors. Gloss certainly has the production values for limited overseas release, but it's just as likely to be consigned to DVD after a spin on the festival circuit.
Galya (an appropriately low-rent Yulia Vysotskaya) is a working-class seamstress in the backwater town of Rostov-on-Don who dreams of becoming Russia's next great supermodel. After she's featured in a second-rate ad in a local newspaper, she decides the time is right to move to Moscow. She borrows enough money to get there from her on-and-off thug boyfriend, Vitya (Ilya Isaev), and quickly finesses her way into the office of the editor of Beauty magazine.
The editor, Marina (Irina Rozanova), lays the brutal truth on Galya: She doesn't stand a chance of making her mag's cover. Only temporarily defeated, Galya lands on her feet by working as a seamstress for the Karl Lagerfeld-like Mark (Yefim Shifrin), stumbles (literally) onto the runway in his new collection's show, loses her job and winds up working for erstwhile agent and escort mogul Petya (Gennady Smirnov). In the end, she does make the cover of Beauty after being transformed into a latter-day Grace Kelly and marrying up to politico Klimenko (Alekander Domogarov).
There's a lot going on in Gloss, and Konchalovsky and co-writer Dunya Smirnova go to great pains to draw links among fashion, prostitution, power and celebrity while at the same time peeling some of the glamor from the glitterati. The film is populated by shallow, fundamentally unhappy people who are simply spinning their wheels.
Marina's magazine is just a little behind the curve, and she feels her age when she looks at her competition, some of which comes in the form of her arrogant, needling daughter Nastya (Olga Arntgolts). Rozanova is affecting as a former beauty facing forced retirement, but she's only in Galya's sphere for a fleeting moment. Gloss is loaded with partially explored ideas, but therein lies the problem: They're also partially unexplored.
GLOSS
A Mosfilm, Motion Investment Group, Cadran Prods., Studio Canal, Backup Films production
Sales agent: Fortissimo Films
Credits:
Director: Andrei Konchalovsky
Screenwriters: Andrei Konchalovsky, Dunya Smirnova
Producer: Andrei Konchalovsky
Director of photography: Mariya Solovyova
Production designer: Yekaterina Zaletayeva
Music: Eduard Artemyev
Co-producers: Jeremy Burdek, Nadia Khamlichi, Adrian Politowski
Editor: Olga Grinshpun
Cast:
Galya: Yulia Vysotskaya
Zhanna: Olga Meloyanina
Vitya: Ilya Isaev
Marina: Irina Rozanova
Nastya: Olga Arntgolts
Mark: Yefim Shifrin
Petya: Gennady Smirnov
Klimenko: Alekander Domogarov
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
HONG KONG -- In what is sure to be viewed as a Russian spin on The Devil Wears Prada, director Andrei Konchalovsky (Sibiriada, Runaway Train) turns an only partially jaundiced eye at the modern fixation on celebrity and fashion.
This is somewhat outdated and well-worn material, and explorations of the encroachment of Western celebrity culture on developing nations isn't new either. On top of that, a good amount of the film relies on tired character archetypes. Although cinematically polished and possessing an engaging lead, Gloss never manages to take flight as an effective satire.
Any film skewering the fashion industry and what was once called The Jet Set is likely to get attention from independent and Art House distributors. Gloss certainly has the production values for limited overseas release, but it's just as likely to be consigned to DVD after a spin on the festival circuit.
Galya (an appropriately low-rent Yulia Vysotskaya) is a working-class seamstress in the backwater town of Rostov-on-Don who dreams of becoming Russia's next great supermodel. After she's featured in a second-rate ad in a local newspaper, she decides the time is right to move to Moscow. She borrows enough money to get there from her on-and-off thug boyfriend, Vitya (Ilya Isaev), and quickly finesses her way into the office of the editor of Beauty magazine.
The editor, Marina (Irina Rozanova), lays the brutal truth on Galya: She doesn't stand a chance of making her mag's cover. Only temporarily defeated, Galya lands on her feet by working as a seamstress for the Karl Lagerfeld-like Mark (Yefim Shifrin), stumbles (literally) onto the runway in his new collection's show, loses her job and winds up working for erstwhile agent and escort mogul Petya (Gennady Smirnov). In the end, she does make the cover of Beauty after being transformed into a latter-day Grace Kelly and marrying up to politico Klimenko (Alekander Domogarov).
There's a lot going on in Gloss, and Konchalovsky and co-writer Dunya Smirnova go to great pains to draw links among fashion, prostitution, power and celebrity while at the same time peeling some of the glamor from the glitterati. The film is populated by shallow, fundamentally unhappy people who are simply spinning their wheels.
Marina's magazine is just a little behind the curve, and she feels her age when she looks at her competition, some of which comes in the form of her arrogant, needling daughter Nastya (Olga Arntgolts). Rozanova is affecting as a former beauty facing forced retirement, but she's only in Galya's sphere for a fleeting moment. Gloss is loaded with partially explored ideas, but therein lies the problem: They're also partially unexplored.
GLOSS
A Mosfilm, Motion Investment Group, Cadran Prods., Studio Canal, Backup Films production
Sales agent: Fortissimo Films
Credits:
Director: Andrei Konchalovsky
Screenwriters: Andrei Konchalovsky, Dunya Smirnova
Producer: Andrei Konchalovsky
Director of photography: Mariya Solovyova
Production designer: Yekaterina Zaletayeva
Music: Eduard Artemyev
Co-producers: Jeremy Burdek, Nadia Khamlichi, Adrian Politowski
Editor: Olga Grinshpun
Cast:
Galya: Yulia Vysotskaya
Zhanna: Olga Meloyanina
Vitya: Ilya Isaev
Marina: Irina Rozanova
Nastya: Olga Arntgolts
Mark: Yefim Shifrin
Petya: Gennady Smirnov
Klimenko: Alekander Domogarov
Running time -- 118 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/27/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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