MOSCOW , September 21, Anastasia Silkina. Filmmakers are increasingly paying attention to what is outside the Moscow Ring Road. Many TV series and films are not filmed in Moscow, and the Russian province becomes the main character along with the characters. The projects presented at the New Season festival, which will soon be shown in online cinemas, are no exception. About these new products — in the material.
«A boy's word»: perestroika has taken to the streets
The screenwriters are inspired by the dysfunctional past, the memory of which has almost disappeared in the capital.
The heroes of Zhora Kryzhovnikov’s series “The Boy’s Word” live in the late 80s . Economic restructuring is resulting in street chaos: young people create groups and “fight for the asphalt” in order to control their area and city. According to the new rules, the highest oath is “the boy’s word,” but it must be kept only with equals.
The joint eight-episode project Wink and Start starred Ivan Yankovsky, Sergey Burunov, Anastasia Krasovskaya, Nikita Kologrivy, Lev Zulkarnaev, Ruzil Minekaev, Elizaveta Bazykina and Anna Peresild.
Despite the plot references to Tatarstan, the creators emphasized: the story is universal for that era and for any point in the Soviet Union. Filming took place in the Yaroslavl region.
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“In film dramaturgy, we don’t smooth out corners, but try to find something that hurts the most and work with it. All this really existed. We can look at this as a page in our history that we have overcome,” noted script co-author Andrei Zolotarev.
«Prelest» and «Lada Gold»: the gold rush of the 90s
In the center of Dinar Garipov's six-episode crime drama «Prelest» (Prelest online cinema) with Oleg Menshikov, Philip Yankovsky and Fedor Fedotov in the leading roles — the fictional Novoprigonyevsky refinery.
The city-forming enterprise was built in Soviet times. In the 90s, its leaders became the unofficial masters of the area. Banditry flourished here, and the protagonist's father, who worked at a gold factory, fell victim to it. 20 years later, the son, a car thief with principles nicknamed Gypsy, decides to find the culprits and take revenge.
The story has no specific reference. It was impossible to place the heroes in Moscow, because there are no such enterprises there, explained producer Irina Arkadyeva. Although the necessary locations for filming were found precisely in the capital region.
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"The story is universal: it is a parable about people, their sins, love, betrayal, forgiveness. It doesn’t matter where you live — in Kaliningrad, Vladivostok, the Omsk region or Moscow — it could have happened anywhere,” says the producer.
The director of the film «Major in Sochi» Nikita Vlasov again took up the regional theme: in the new season on «Ivy» his series «Lada Gold» with Roman Evdokimov, Eldar Kalimulin, Pavel Priluchny and Daniil Vorobyov.
The grandson of crime boss Midas, Arthur, is forced to return from Europe to Togliatti (Samara region) for his grandfather’s funeral. And the grandson of the city-famous policeman-hero Ogurtsov, Pavel, got stuck in problems with his family, girlfriend and money. By chance, the young people get a car made of pure gold, into which the entire thieves' common fund was once melted down, and the hunt begins for them.
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"Lada cars" is produced in Tolyatti, and the series would not have happened without it. Moreover, we took a lot of material from the history of the city: we have both collective images and prototypes,” Vlasov explained.
The director hopes that the plot will also resonate with the capital’s audience.
““Moscow is woven from regions: a lot of people come to the capital, so such stories are interesting to everyone,” he believes.
«Crybaby»: life beyond the Moscow Ring Road
Whether there is life in the outback, the main character of Andrei Silkin’s eight-part film “Crybaby” (Wink and STS) has to find out.
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“We want to show that life exists not only in cities with a population of over a million: everywhere people fall in love, quarrel, and make up. It seems right to me that many films are now being filmed outside of Moscow. This way, every viewer can recognize themselves in the characters and fall in love with them,” says the director.
Masha (Nika Zhukova, daughter of the lead singer of “Hands Up!”) and her family move to her grandmother (Irina Rozanova) in Novomorsk . After an elite gymnasium, she needs to get used to the life of a provincial school, to whose problems teachers turn a blind eye.
Her classmates are not happy with the new girl and make her life unbearable. The persecution intensifies when Masha falls in love with the guy of the main rebel and gathers her own group “Crybaby” (Vanya Dmitrienko, Daniil Muravyov, Sofya Nikolaeva).
The film crew found the southern flavor of the fictional Novomorsk in Sochi, but the viewer is unlikely to recognize the popular resort. The frame included non-tourist objects: houses, a local school, a hospital, the boarding house «Southern Vzmorye», the beach «Red Storm», a fishing base in Kudepsta.
So that in the new season you can prepare for travel — on the screen.