The Fifth Festival of Russian films Sputnik over Poland has just finished in Warsaw. Just a year ago it was called Sputnik over Warsaw, but later its geography expanded and after several shows in the capital city our films will travel 42 more Polish cities.
If this festival is compared with similar actions in other countries, nothing equal in scale can be found. Sputnik’s program includes more than 150 movies, both brand new and those going back to Soviet times, animated films, documentaries and fiction films. These include such popular cartoons as Cheburashka, Just you wait, Magic Lamp of Aladdin, and also the special program Russian Eros that even includes Third Meschanskaya directed by Abram Room and Little Vera directed by Vasily Pichul as well as films about space.
Volunteers have the opportunity to attend a special course called Stanislavsky’s Method or visit the master class and retrospective by Andrei Konchalovsky. He is well known in Poland and not only due to his films. Several years ago he staged King Lear in Warsaw. And on the day of Sputnik’s opening night Konchalovsky presented The Nutcracker and gave a welcoming address.
He praised the festival, noting that it is visited by people who do not eat popcorn and still love reading books. One could not even imagine 20 years ago that people of Poland would wish to see Russian films. Konchalovsky spoke about the dominant influence of Hollywood and the danger of ‘rat’-ification” of the world. The huge auditorium of the Palace of Culture was almost full. By the way, this is the tallest building in the city – a monument of the late Stalinism period designed by Soviet architect Lev Rudnev. Twenty years ago they wanted to take down this high-rise and now this is the top landmark in Warsaw.
The jury led by Polish classic Krzystof Zanussi were engaged in the official selection of 14 movies and adjudged Grand Prix to Alexander Sokurov’s Faust. The film that won at the Venetian Film Festival has not yet been demonstrated in Russia, but “Sputnik” was able to grab it thanks to the French partners. The second prize went to Fireman by Alexei Balabanov and the third prize – to Portrait in Twilight by Angelina Novikova. Generation П by Viktor Ginzburg won the audience choice prize.
Film director Mikhail Kalik has long been living in Israel where he emigrated, when he realized that he would not be able to work in the USSR. His films ran the gauntlet of censorship and edited mercilessly. He even asked that his name be eliminated from the screen credits of the Loving. In Warsaw Kalik presented a retrospective of five films, including such well-known ones as A Man Follows the Sun and Good-bye, Boys! Tears stood in his eyes, when he saw the Soviet version of his Loving that was edited beyond recognition. This copy had been sent from Russia, probably by mistake.
In addition to an impressive delegation of Russian filmmakers, such as Viktor Sukhorukov, Andrei Smirnov, Anton Shagin, Viktor Shamirov, Konstantin Buslov and many others, they invited a unique person named Yuri Silaev to Warsaw. This man who assembled the first Earth sputnik (satellite) almost by hand was the hero of Ludmila Tsvetkova’s documentary Gold Hands. During his lifetime he has worked up to the collar under the information security order and under the guidance of Sergey Kovalev. Even his wife did not know exactly what he was doing. Interestingly enough, Yuri Silaev still works for the same institute today. After the film show he answered the boldest questions of the audience who were interested, above other things, in the salary and retirement allowance paid to such rare experts who are the national human assets. People wondered, whether all components of the sputnik were made in the USSR and he gave honest answers. He is an amazing personality and a very modest man, unlike many other creative big-heads. Viktor Sukhorukov thought it the great privilege to meet that man.
The festival is overseen by a great admirer of Russian cinematograph and Russian culture Malgorzata Szlagowska-Skulska and her husband Pyotr Skulsky who annually hold a big show of Polish films called Vistula.
Svetlana Khohryakova
