Exploring the dreams and disillusionments of people who were raised behind the Iron
Curtain, My Perestroika is an intimate and compelling portrait of the challenges faced by the last generation of Soviet children.

Mon May 3 9:30 PM Cumberland Cinemas, 159 Cumberland Street

Sat May 8 2:00 PM Cumberland Cinemas, 159 Cumberland Street

Please, visit Hot Docs Festival for more info

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Western filmmakers have had their turns. Now new, groundbreaking, culturally-authentic versions of Anna Karenina and Taras Bulba will be on offer at the second KinoArt Festival.

The Russian Film Festival, which runs in Toronto from Thursday, November 5th, until Sunday, November 8th, 2009, will also offer Russophiles a long-awaited sequel to Assa, the film that galvanized the underground Russian rock scene back in 1987. Also featured is the North American premiere of Metro, a stunning and unique documentary on the monumental Moscow subway, the first film of its kind to cover this subject. As well, there’s the 2008 Russian box-office hit We are From the Future, Andrei Maliukov’s time-traveling adventure that takes place in St. Petersburg during the fierce defense of the city in 1942.

After a successful launch in 2007, KinoArt Festival is back and this year brings with it the massive premiere of Anna Karenina along with legendary Russian director Sergey Solovyev and actress Tatyana Drubich.  Solovyev’s version of the Leo Tolstoy’s epic love story will turn heads and provoke cinematic debate.

“We are very excited to bring Toronto our second KinoArt Festival,” says Alla-Ani Poliakova, Founder and Executive Director of the Festival. “Our goal has always been to chronicle the evolution of Russian films, past and present  through our film event, and this year we are really thrilled to be offering the most impressive feature films, documentaries, and shorts, some never before seen, and bring that to North America, specifically Toronto.”

Other highlights at KinoArt include director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Yuriev Den, about a famous opera singer, which won the Grand Prix at Warsaw International Film Festival in 2008.

Making its debut in Toronto is Taras Bulba, directed by renowned director Vladimir Bortko it is based on the book by Nikolai Gogol (called “one of the 10 greatest books of all time” by Ernest Hemingway). Famously embraced by Hollywood as a starring vehicle for the late Yul Brynner, it’s an enduringly controversial story about Ukraine’s Cossack warriors and their campaign to defend their lands from the advancing Polish armies.

From the notorious Russian director Alexei Balabanov, comes Morphine, his interpretation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s A Country Doctor’s Notebook. The film’s screenplay was written by another famous Russian director, Sergei Bodrov, Jr. This joint effort recounts the events of 1917, the turbulent year of the Russian Revolution. 

Shultes takes the audience on an existential voyage to Moscow, into the heart of Russia’s capital. The film is shown through the eyes of an ordinary Muscovite, who lives in an ordinary apartment building somewhere on the outskirts of the city, alone. His only connection to reality: his notepad.

The Festival closes with a searing documentary, Process directed by Alexander Zeldovich and devoted to the anniversary of the 1952 execution of the Jewish anti-fascist committee of the former U.S.S.R.  Process, co-presented by the Jewish Film Festival, will be followed by a Q&A. 

The same evening, visiting director Sergey Solovyev (Anna Karenina) will screen Assa – a Russian cult favourite from the late 80’s. His original film gave voice to the underground rock music scene, with the lead played by the charismatic rocker Victor Tsoy (the film’s soundtrack features a number of songs performed by a variety of Russian rock singers). Following the screening of Assa, after a wait of 22 years, will be the North American premiere of the sequel Assa 2.  Solovyev’s sequel portrays the new generation in contemporary Russia, within a complex structure that references Solovyev’s own Anna Karenina. 

Of note, Thomas Lahusen, Professor of Eurasian Cultural History at the University of Toronto and documentary filmmaker, together with Sergei Kapterev, senior researcher at the Institute of Film Art in Moscow, will participate in a panel on the present, past, and future of Russian cinema on November 6.  Some of the questions raised will be the politics of documentary film, the problem of film exhibition and preservation, and the relevance of the Soviet cinematic experience to contemporary Russian and world cinema.

Following the panel discussion, a stunning debut will occur – the world premiere of Their Kingdom, a 1928 documentary from Soviet Georgia presented by Sergei Kapterev, with a post-screening Q&A. The film, by Mikhail Kalatozishvili, had been considered lost until its first two reels were discovered at Russia’s State Film Archive. Sergei Kapterev holds a Doctorate in Cinema Studies from New York University and is the author of the book Post-Stalinist Cinema and the Russian Intelligentsia, 1953-1960.

Also, Lahusen will present his own two short films; The Province of Lost Film and The Photographer at KinoArt on November 7.

Anna Karenina, directed by Sergey Solovyev

Gala Opening Night Screening
Thursday November 5, 2009
7:00pm
Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St., W.
Tickets available at the door night of screening:
$20, includes Reception following Screening
$10, for students/seniors
Also, purchase tickets at http://www.torontovka.com/afisha/event/1249/

Anna Karenina is a screen version of the novel by the great russian writer Leo Tolstoy. This work is one of the tops of the russian classical literature. Vladimir Nabokov called Anna Karenina world’s best novel. The plot of the novel and its main conflict is in the love story between Anna Karenina, the wife of a high-ranking government official, and one of the most brilliant officers of the russian army Aleksei Vronsky.

For a long time Anna tries to resist her feelings, understanding what tragic consequences it may have, but Vronsky’s persistence takes over. Anna gives herself to him and gets pregnant from him. She decides not to hide anything from her husband. She wants honesty and clarity in her new complicated situation, wish is absolutely not tolerated by the high society and career of her husband. Struggle of the inner feeling freedom and human conscience related with God tragically ends with Anna’s suicide. God and conscience overcome.

The film is directed by Sergey Solovyov, who is one of the greatest russian film directors of the senior generation. The shooting took place in Tolstoy’s estate Yasnaya Polyana and original palaces in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions. This screen version is true to the spirit of the magnificent novel.

Director: Sergey Solovyov

Script: Sergey Solovyov

Camera: Sergey Astahov R.G.C., Yuriy Klimenko R.G.C.

Art Director: Alexander Borisov, Sergey Ivanov

Costumes: Natalya Dzyubenko

His only encounter with human feelings occurs when he finds a video tape of a young woman in the apartment he robbed…. This contact with a stranger’s life leads Shultes to rash decisions.

Soloviev sees the sequel as ‘a natural continuation of the first film’ and to this end many of the themes are carried over from the original. The desire for change is still prevalent and, using skilful characterisation, Soloviev asks questions about the changes that have taken place in Russia since 1988. Assa II also uses contemporary rock music, and features the talents of ska punk hero Sergei Shnurov and classical violinist Yuri Bashmet.

A sequel for a cult film of the late 1980’s “ASSA”. It focuses on the life of Alika, who served her time for killing Krymov and becomes a famous actress.

Alexey Balabanov on Morphine …

The screenplay is based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s ruthless Notes of a Young Doctor. Having been a country doctor, a lot of things that Bulgakov describes he had experienced himself, including a severe addiction to morphine. In his native Kiev, highly skilled doctors and people close to him nursed the future writer back to health. He had time to change his profession and create his major works – The White Guard, The Master and Margarita, and to write Morphia, his autobiographical chronicle of slow destruction. I took this screenplay because it was written by Sergei Bodrov, Jr. He was my friend and we wanted to do a lot together, we discussed different projects. I decided to continue what he had no time to. He wanted to shoot this screenplay very much.

Engineers were not experienced enough for such construction activity. Technical solutions were made on-the-fly, sometimes directly on the spot. Thus lineaments of the present-day metro took shape gradually, and not on the paper, but “on location”. A great amount of workers, special equipment and materials were drawn together for the sake of construction. The pride of Moscow metro, its architectural appearance, was finished at the very last moment, not long before its operation activity.

Genre: Culture

Running time: 87′

Directed by: Liza Listova

Year of production: 2009

Metro service remained the biggest Moscow building ground for more than one decade. The construction went on even during the World War II. A special chapter of the film is devoted to metro and the war. The order to destroy metro due to fascist military advance was revoked at the last moment. And then metro became a bomb shelter, home for the General Staff, antiaircraft defense headquarters and even a library.

“Stalin’s metro”, grandiose and expensive, became one of the main objects of the fight against aesthetic frills of the middle-50s. The era of so-called “tiled metro” has started. Instead of magnificence and showiness of the stations, design engineers received new requirement for kilometers of the new lines.

The film is based on the unique documental shooting in metro service. It is based upon documents, clips and photos from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Samarian archives, many of which have never been published, and are unknown to professional historians.

When Soloviev’s groundbreaking film Assa came out in 1988, it immediately became a cult classic of the perestroika era, representing underground culture – and especially rock music – as a force for change in the final torpid years of the Soviet Union.

Synopsis

The and young and cautious heroine of the film links her fate with the head of a criminal group. By the time she realises her mistake, it’s too late. A young musician falls for mobster’s young mistress. The parallel story line involves an 18th century assassination plot.
The following rock groups take part in the film: Kino, Akvarium, Bravo, and the Union of Composers.

Director: Sergey Solovyov

Script: Sergey Livnev, Sergey Solovyov

Camera: Pavel Lebeshev

Art Director: Marksen Gaukhmansverdlo

Costumes: Irina Gunno

Composer: Boris Grebenshchikov

Music: Viktor Tsoy, Yevgeny Khavtan, Slexander Sinitsyn