Laboratory of GROODS

Text : Lisa Mikhalchenko Illustration : Natalya Yamshchikova July 28, 2016

What to do if a contemporary artist, actress of domestic series, director from Canada and a Russian journalist decided to make a movie? “Kinolab Moscow” helps to connect them in one command - a Kinoabare, where spontaneously arising commands shoot short films in just a few days. Teams are formed on the day of pitching around the ideas voiced by the directors. We met, wrote the script - and after a few decades showed the public a three -minute film.

1

Thorny wire shines in the sun, the sky overlaps a powerful concrete wall. Cars fly past me with a whistle. Where to find these filmmakers? In small groups, they had to shoot at VDNH, and I, going around the whole park and going out to the botanical garden, saw only tourists with cameras and not a single “man with a film apparatus”. And now, going around the wall of the Kaliber plant built in Soviet times, I want to get to the headquarters of Kinolaba. When the monotonous wall of the wall ends, the labyrinth of buildings begins. The windows rustle the blinds, people in white shirts and workers in orange helmets flickered around me occasionally. Behind the buildings of the offices are piles of stones - the ruins of the plant. In the parking lot near the jeep there is a man in black jacket and sunglasses, he plays with a gun. I hope this is a "Kinolab".
- Do you shoot? I'm a journalist, I'll see, okay?
- I am also a journalist, from Rolling Stone. I play in the film. I am a rowdy, a drunkard and a drug addict.
- This is he in the image. Why don't you ask me? I am a director, Artyom, - a tall guy and a girl with a camera come out of the car.

The director squatted and covers his face with his hands.
- We shoot the last scene for today. You are sitting in the car and chatting. Say what you like: I have a muscle on the background, there will be only one phrase in the film, at the end. Do you know why we don’t write sound? “Artyom turns to me.” - Because our sound is disappeared. Back to Mars flew away or something ...

No one will wait for the sound engineer. The team has only seventy -two hours to create a film. "Kinolab" works according to the scheme of three shootings: twenty -four hours, forty -eight hours and seventy -two. Before each of them, in Pitching, where the director talks about his idea, the film crew gathers and writes the script at the allotted time, shoots the film and mounts it. In the final, viewing short films is arranged. There is no competition at the end: the work is built in such a way that the same person, for example, the operator (which, according to the participants, are always lacking) shoots several films at once.

In a light conference hall, people in white robes walk, wear cones with green liquid. Closer to the cafe - several girls with a drawn mustache and in pots. They make a film about how women become men today, and men are women. On one of the bright puffs scattered across the hall, a guy in huge black headphones and bright blue clothes sits. This is Oleg Zano, he devoted one of his documentaries to his eyes and hands. Wandering the streets, took off the views of people, the hands playing the saxophone, brewing coffee: he wanted to show how with the help of them a person perceives the world.
- So, it all starts with the fact that I fry the scrambled eggs. Gloomy morning. Write down? - Dicts the blonde to her mug.

There are only girls in this team. They are going to remove the drama about the quarrel and reconciliation of their daughter and mother.
-And then she throws a fork and leaves the table.

- No, it will not throw a fork, it's trite. It just comes out. Write down?

2

The film laboratory is a world epidemic. In Canada, filmmakers came up with a way to gather and make a short movie per day. An international party has developed, and people who call themselves Knicators go from the country to the country to get acquainted with other filmmakers and make a film with them. This time, Sofia from France, which remained after Kinolaba in Russia for several days, gathered all the free -made Kickers free, and they managed to make another film in a few days. The actors played out the last duplicate, late at the airport.

Kinoabar fell into Russia with a light hand of Valeria Sabirova and Inna Tikhonova from France. There, Kinolab was held in the northern town of Trois, where behind a glass of wine the scriptwriter and a director from Belgium convinced Leru that she should try to make her film. In the conditions of Kinolaba, it is more difficult to avoid shooting than to remain in it not involved: an idea arose by itself, a composer appeared, someone helped with installation, and Lera herself played the main role.
- When I returned to Moscow, I realized how much I lack such creativity and responsiveness here. I began to travel a lot around other Kabaret, volunteered in France, consulted a lot with the organizers of other “Kinolab”. At first we tried to make a “movie in a week”. The project aroused interest, and I gathered a team, ”says Lera.

Now the Kinolabu is facilitated by the non -governmental organization Moscow Cinema. Last year, Grant from the Department of Culture helped to get to their feet. The state rarely gives money to such projects, but Kinoabare turned out to be an interesting and important event: the international party works very well for the local community and on the image of the city. "Kinolab" each time proves to foreigners that in Russia you can work and shoot multicultural cinema.

3

We are standing with Alexander Manilov on the deck of Bryusov. The final party takes place here.
-I came to Kinolab with some scenario, but every time I wrote a new one in the night, because he did not coincide with the general message. My method of working in Kinolabe is very funny: I come to an introductory party, drink one and a half bottles of wine and when I sober up a little, I write a new script all night.

Sasha’s films are very fond of: at shows, he breaks the applause for two years in a row. This time he had a story about the thinking stereotypes and therefore a barren screenwriter and his wife, who is able to revive his heroes by the power of his love. Manilov himself has long been telling stories: ten years ago, one familiar producer asked him to write a script for the film. Then he read a lot of textbooks, but the script still failed. He composed songs for a long time, but when he wanted to talk about, he ceased to fit into the genre, he realized that cinema is a more suitable format for self -expression.
- Sash, was it that you got up one morning, looked at your script and decided that it was time to look for producers, actors and shoot a full meter?

- Rather, it happens that he wrote the script - and doubts begin to gnaw immediately. This is the worst. You write it all night, wake up in the morning, look and think: what a garbage. It is necessary to look for actors, persuade them, collect the whole team, and this is a different level. You immediately understand that for shooting you need to rewrite better. This is my standard state. Therefore, I shot all my films on Kinolabe, he helped me find faith in myself.

Cinema is not invented here for years at the table, and the actors are not looking for months: these are improvisation films, much in them depends on the coincidences. So, everything coincided on the site of the “best scream”. After Pitching, director Zhenya Belov met Timur Ziatatov. They somehow understood each other. Timur graduated from the journalism factory, but from journalism went to the cinema: he realized that politics and social institutions did not actually express the true motives of people, and in cinema through images and symbols one can reach the essence of human relations. Timur and Zhenya together rewrote the script and shot one of the best films of the third session.
- For the first time, I managed to tell everything I wanted in my film. For the first time I knew exactly why every frame of the film was needed, ”says Evgeny Belov, director of the picture.
Zhenya is quite experienced: he shot episodes for a long meter with professional actors.

My dream is to go to a serious producing. I participated in pitching, it seems to me that the Foundation of Cinema gives money for good copyright films, but it is quite difficult to get them. I am a supporter of the fact that you can make a movie on your knees. A serious full meter can be removed in one hundred thousand. I want to be independent. Gather people and remove a cool story.

Producer Elena Stepanishcheva shot with Boris Khlebnikov a full -length film “So far the night is separated” for $ 100,000, taking them on credit and repaying the debt after the rental of the film. The shooting was built in such a way that the actors took turns in one shift (they did not need to be all shifts on the site), the film crew worked for free, and all this happened only on one location. Everyone received their fee after the film repelled the budget at the box office.

Zhenya would like to make a film that cinema is the meaning of life. He wants it to be a film about a guy from Siberia, who is mortally ill and loved by cinema. And when he is taken to VGIK, he dies. This story is real, Zhenya read it in the journal "Session".

- I saw myself in this guy, and I wanted to perpetuate his name. Only I want to make him a director so that he would make a movie, and then die, and his films are the only thing that remains of him. It always seemed to me that the most important thing is to pass away noticed, to leave the matter to remember you. Get a place. One of the participants of Kinoabare once said: in order to become a professional in his field, you need to work out ten thousand hours. I have already counted seventy -two hours.

Text Lisa Mikhalchenko Moscow

Illustration Natalya Yamshchikova St. Petersburg