Merezhko Victor

Born on July 28, 1937 in the Olginfeld farmstead, Aleksandrovsky district, Rostov region. Father - Merezhko Ivan Sevastyanovich (born 1899). Mother - Goncharova Alexandra Efimovna (born 1913). Wife - Tamara Vadimovna Merezhko (1946-1997). Children: Merezhko Maria Viktorovna (born 1973), student of the directing department of VGIK, Merezhko Ivan Viktorovich (born 1982), student of the acting department of GITIS.

The native village of Viktor Merezhko translated from German means “Olgino Field”. It received its name in honor of one of the daughters of the former owner, the landowner Engelhard. V. Merezhko's parents were rural employees. My father worked as the manager of a separator station for the distillation of milk, which was handed over to the villagers as a tax. There were four children in the family - three sons and one daughter. Due to the peculiarities of not only the father’s work, but also his personal character, the family repeatedly had to change their place of residence - Rostov region, Stavropol region, Krasnodar region. They lived extremely poorly, were on the verge of extinction from hunger, and in 1952, following a letter from their mother’s sisters, they moved to Ukraine, where life at that time was both more satisfying and calmer. The village to which the Merezhkos moved was located near the city of Cherkassy and was called Russkaya Polyana. The children went to Ukrainian school, with difficulty, but they learned the Ukrainian language, successfully completed their tenth year, and went elsewhere.

The middle son, Victor, tried to enter the Kiev Polytechnic Institute at the Faculty of Film Engineering, but failed the entrance exams and spent a whole year doing whatever he could - he worked in the forest as a lumberjack, then went to work in Arkhangelsk. In 1956 he went to Lvov to go to college. Which one, it didn’t matter to him - as long as he studied in Lvov. My mother’s brother lived in the Lviv region; he promised to help his nephew with at least something. In Lvov, Victor entered the Faculty of Technology of the Ukrainian Printing Institute, although before that he had no idea about printing. Throughout the five years of his studies, Victor was helped by his uncle - at least with a jar of jam a month, and sometimes a little money.

After graduating from the institute, V. Merezhko insisted on being assigned to his native Rostov region, to the Molot publishing house. He worked as a production engineer, although even then all his thoughts were about cinema. In his free time, he wrote simple, sometimes elementary script stories, entered a competition at the city amateur film studio and became a very noticeable figure there (at the level of film fans) as a screenwriter. I dreamed about VGIK, about the screenwriting department. He didn’t feel like a writer at all, but he understood that he had a flair for the craft of screenwriting.

After working for two years at the publishing house, in 1963 he sent his works to a competition in Moscow. They were rejected by the admissions committee because the university graduate needed to work for a mandatory 3 years. Viktor Merezhko had to work in the printing field for another year. In 1964, he again sent a letter to VGIK. This time, the documents were accepted and Victor was enrolled in the first year, in the workshop recruited by Alexey Speshnev.

After 2 years, A. Speshnev began making his own films and devoted less and less time to students. The course asked the department to replace the master, and the workshop was headed by the oldest teacher and editor - Professor Ilya Weisfeld. He led the students to the defense and actually became the “godfather” of Viktor Merezhko in the cinema. At his suggestion, already in the 2nd year of the institute, Merezhko was given a short script for Mosfilm, which was rare for VGIK, based on which the feature film “Zarechensky Grooms” was shot at the largest studio in the country.

Merezhko got married while still a student. He brought his young wife Tamara to Moscow, and she shared the poor but cheerful life of the young film playwright. After graduating from VGIK, life turned its back on him. For three years, Merezhko tried to get into studios, but was refused everywhere - three years without work, without Moscow registration, without money and prospects. Then Weisfeld and playwright Braginsky helped: Merezhko received an order from the Lenfilm studio. According to his script, a year later the film “Hello and Farewell” was shot there, which was noticed by discerning critics.

Since then, films based on the scripts of V.I. Merezhko have been shot one after another: “Tryn-grass”, “Squag”, “Kinfolk”, “Citizen Nikanorova is waiting for you”, “Sorry”, “Flying in a dream and in reality”, “A lonely woman wants to meet”, “When leaving - go away”, “Dog feast”, “Racket”, “Hen Ryaba”, “Under a blue sky”, “Three women and man"... - a total of 46 films shot by many famous directors, not counting short films and animated films. In 1980, V.I. Merezhko was awarded the USSR State Prize for the film “Flying in a Dream and in Reality.”

In addition to film scripts, V.I. Merezhko also began writing plays - 16 in total. Some of them were performed in almost all theaters of the USSR. The most famous are “Proletarian Mill of Happiness”, “Night Fun”, “Scream”, “I am a Woman”, “Women’s Table in the Hunting Hall”, “Two from the Main Road”, “Caucasian Roulette”. Currently, V.I. Merezhko is finishing work on the play “Men on Weekends” and is starting to write the script for the multi-part television film “Saga of Crime.”

Viktor Merezhko has been the secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia and Moscow for many years. He is a member of the Writers' Union of Russia, chairman of the board of the House of Cinema. Together with Yuliy Gusman he founded the NIKA Film Academy and became its president. Together with I. Shevchuk and S. Novozhilov, Viktor Merezhko founded one of the most prestigious - the Anapa Film Festival of the CIS and Baltic countries "Kinoshok", also becoming its president. In 1987 he was awarded the title "Honored Artist of Russia".

He devotes rare free time from work to his family, children, his beloved parrot, and his dacha.

Lives and works in Moscow.