Daniil Dondurei: “Balabanov was underestimated”

54-year-old director Alexei Balabanov died near St. Petersburg. Producer Sergei Selyanov reported this to the Russian News Service on May 18. According to him, the director had a seizure.

Daniil Dondurei, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Art of Cinema":

“I think that Alexey Balabanov is an outstanding Russian film director. Not even just a leader of generations, as is often said, but a director who will remain in the history of modern Russian cinema as a person who, in the most radical and most accurate artistic way, reflected 90 -th and zero years. In this regard, it seems to me that he was very underestimated, although the professionals knew very well who Alexey Balabanov was, and his work is simply a reflection of all these new Russian years. This is a huge loss for Russian culture. I’m just not enough. I don’t know any current Russian film directors who would express their time in this way. A gigantic loss for our culture and art.”

Alexey Oktyabrovich Balabanov was born in Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg). He was a translator by training. From 1981 to 1983, he served as an officer in Soviet aviation, flying to African and Asian countries that were exotic for Soviet people. I was in Afghanistan.

After two years in the army he returned to civilian life. In 1990 he graduated from the directing department of the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors . He started as an assistant director. In 1990, Balabanov moved to St. Petersburg. In 1992, he was one of the founders of the STV company, with which he shot most of his films. Balabanov made his first film, “It Used to Be a Different Time,” in 1985. But the film “Brother” with Sergei Bodrov in the title role brought Balabanov real fame. In 1997, people started talking about him as a cult director. "Brother-2" only secured this title for him. Then there were the films “War”, “It Doesn’t Hurt Me”, “Zhmurki” with Nikita Mikhalkov and Dmitry Dyuzhev in the lead roles and “Cargo 200”, which caused a stir even at the pre-production stage.

“A film that can be told in words is not worth making. I don’t like to talk at length - I love making movies. Although I don’t at all think that cinema is such a great art that the people need like air,” said Balabanov.

In his latest film about the search for happiness, “I Want It Too,” Balabanov played the director—himself. He appears in a short episode, at the end of which he dies with the words “I want happiness.”