A melodrama about a six-year-old Russian boy who is adopted by an Italian family, but tries to find his real mother. This Russian film has been nominated for the American Film Academy Awards (Oscar for the best foreign, or rather non-English-language, film). The choice sounds sensational and, at first glance, absurd. After all, for the last two years we have only been talking about the invasion of domestic blockbusters on our screens and the triumph of large forms. This was evidenced by last year's Oscar nomination for the box office triumph, Night Watch. This year, neither “The Turkish Gambit” nor “State Counselor” were even considered - apparently due to the fact that the rights to the film adaptation of Boris Akunin’s “Fandorian” were sold to Hollywood, and the Russian versions do not have an international certificate.
An even more ridiculous set of circumstances prevented The Ninth Company by Fyodor Bondarchuk from being nominated for consideration by the American Film Academy. The film was released commercially six days before the deadline stipulated by the rules, and the same American rules stipulate that the film must be shown in the country of production for at least seven days. It turns out that just 24 hours was not enough for the committee to have grounds to nominate this particular film, which by all accounts best meets the Oscar criteria.

Then the Russian Committee for Nominating Russian Films took an unconventional move and nominated Andrei Kravchuk’s film “The Italian,” which was awarded the main prize at the Children’s Berlinale, as well as prizes in Blagoveshchensk and other festivals. There is a common belief that boys, especially very young and homeless ones, most easily melt the hearts of American academics, who are no strangers to spiritual pedophilia. They remember the success at the Oscars of the Czech “Koli” (also with a Russian boy), our “Thief”. Yes, here is the Swedish film “Zozo”, which was nominated for an Oscar this year by its country, also about an orphan boy: however, he is a victim of the civil war in Lebanon and finds salvation not in Italy, but in Sweden.

"Crazy"

A film about the main teenage problem - loneliness. The passion of white teenagers for hip-hop culture has grown into a whole movement - R`n`B now even stands not as “rhythm & blues”, but as “rich & beautiful”, that is, “rich and beautiful”. Director Barbara Kopple tells the story of the offspring of wealthy parents who are fascinated by street culture.

The desire to belong to a real party of Latinos who sell drugs and read rap leads spoiled girls from a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles to depressing consequences. One of them, Alison, even agrees to undergo a kind of initiation - to sleep with one of the gang members in order to become “one of our own”. The moral is primitive: the attractiveness of the rap world is explained by the fact that the girls lacked real family warmth and love. And when they come face to face with the street, they quickly realize that they would be better off sitting in their parents' mansions.

"Italian" – Weekend – Kommersant