"Herbarium". Online Prime Minister

Another online show “Unknown Russian Doca” (more about the joint project of Colta.ru and the Moscow Documentary Cinema Center- here ). From June 4 to 7, we are broadcasting “Herbarium” - directorial debut of Natalia Meshchaninova (“Hope Combine”), a documentary about a beauty contest in the nursing home. Especially for Colta.ru, Natalya wrote a short story about how she found beauty, laughter and life in a boarding school for old women on the shores of the South Sea. Look at colta.ru now and constantly - in the media text of the Central House of Artists.

The show is finished

- What is this name - “herbarium”? - I have a strictly interested in my experienced director.

- And what about the name? - I carefully ask.

- It is offensive! - an experienced director makes a verdict. - It is inelerant. And it confuses, because it seems that a movie about biology. What is different.

I said nothing, but thought: “X*th you, an experienced director. I’ll call me like that anyway. ”

Because as for me, there is nothing offensive in this. Ironically - yes. But my heroines ... They also treat themselves ironically. They would like the name, I'm sure.

My heroines are elderly ladies from the nursing home on the seashore. But they do not particularly see the sea. Not everyone is released outside the boarding school unaccompanied. This is not to be lost.

My heroines are girls 75 years old. These are teenagers in a brazenly aging body.

They are very interested in this:

- Who is dancing better;
- who has more dresses;
- who plays steeply in a fool;
- Which of them spends the most time with men;
- music;
- laughter;
- cigarettes;
- booze;
- The size of the penis.

That is, the same as girls at the age of 15. In an amazing way, the director of the boarding school did not know anything about this. Well, as usual - the school principal is not quite aware of the interests of his students.

When I came to the director with the idea of ​​organizing a beauty contest and filming a movie, she looked at me with such a heavy look and said: “Baby !!! What kind of hell is beauty? What kind of hell are you here? Here people are barely crawling! Look, what a heat! "

The heat was really under 50. August, what to do. It is clear that not only my "girls" barely crawled. I barely crawled.

I then said - O'Kay. I'll be back in October. In October, is it not the heat? So I will return.

“Oh, yes, come on, come back,” the director waved at me, clearly confident that I would never return again.

I'm back.

She again began to prove to me that people have lived here in recent years, they need peace, they need to change the batteries, they don’t have enough sheets of clean, they don’t even get medicines in the right amount ... Well, in short, she began to drive me about the problems of the boarding school.

I then tell her: “Listen, well, let me hang the announcement in the dining room, if suddenly someone wants to participate. If no one comes, then I will leave, then that's all. ”

"Hang!" - She allowed me from the leopard shoulder, confident in the weakness of her wards.

I hung it. I tried directly-I even painted some drawings. Scene and movie camera.

The next day, 30 people came to the gathering site. Some arrived in strollers. And one grandmother was brought lying down. I was even somehow confused by this ... I think: well, damn it, how will she participate in the competition? And how can I refuse someone here ... although there were really too many people. I would be 10-15.

15 maximum!

But the director was used to talking with them straightforwardly. She immediately sent the lying to lie further, gave the instant lapel-in-housing to those who are in strollers, and those who are under 90.

The director could not fall off one grandmother, no matter how hard she tried. This grandmother barely walked with a wand. She had cancer at the last stage. And just a few people began to prove to her that no beauty contest was shining for her. But this grandmother rested - and not in any. I will, he says, sing and dance to everyone in spite.

In general, they left my grandmother alone.

I was inwardly gleeled.

The director was noble. Allowed the shooting as agreed. But I put such a aunt to me ... Well, such aunts, they really love to climb everything. Here I was assigned a aunt that was supposed to ensure that I did not take off the peeling batteries, dry parquet and dirty sheets.

This aunt tired me terribly. I could not shoot anything at all when she was nearby. Only I focused and pressed the “REC” , she immediately began to comment on everything behind me.

“And this is our flowerbed! And these are our petunies! And these are our birches! And these are our cats! Oh! Kotov do not take off, do not take off the cats! We can’t have cats, we have sanitary standards! Let's go better remove the grandmother alone - she crochet such napkins! Here she is the most talented! Our pride! In exhibitions of the district, it always takes first places! ”

I had to go to remove the napkins.

But as soon as I brought the camera to my overseer in order to at least remove the one who said all this behind my back, she covered her face with her hands, began to laugh, and so it lasted a couple of days until I was completely exhausted.

And then I found out who she works. She was in the boarding school the organizer of cultural activity and leisure. And I have a cunning plan.

The next time she began to yell about petunies and cats, I made a sad face and sat on the bench. I tell her: “I have such a problem, I don’t even know how to solve ... I need to shoot, because you see how many beautiful you have here. And the napkins are here, and the petunies! We need to shoot this all the time! But the script is at all at all! Who will help me? "

She immediately, of course, as a person from culture, began to ask what scenario we are talking about.

“Yes, a beauty contest! After all, without a script in any way! And I don’t even know how to write it ... What to do, I don’t even know ... Here a person is needed, well, sensible. With the talents of a cultural figure ... "

Then she could not stand the first, she didn’t even have to ask. I jumped up from the shop: “Yes, I! I have an education! I am a director of mass actions! I can come up with everything! "

I was delighted, well, hug her. I say: “This is a coincidence! This is a find! "

In short, it all ended that she wrote the script day and night and rehearsed a competition with my “girls”, stopped looking at the camera at all and became a full -fledged heroine of the film.

Well, I, like a cunning fox, gained access to all secret corners.

So the "Herbarium" appeared.