How in Yakutia their Hollywood built

The news about the victory of the "king-bird" at the Moscow Film Festival most likely surprised unenlightened spectators. Yakut film? Do you make a movie in Yakutia? For most residents of Russia, Yakutia itself is an unknown value, like all of Russia for Europeans - a distant cold country in the East, where a rare population is scattered through an endless landscape.

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However, this year, the "Golden Holy George" of the Moscow Film Festival went to Yakutsk. The international jury unanimously awarded the main prize to the director Eduard Novikov, whose film "Tsar-Pititsa" is a parable about people and gods. True, the old man and the old woman were not at the blue sea, but in the snowy taiga. Lonely elderly people were going to quietly celebrate Christmas, when suddenly an eagle went down from the sky and took a place in their house, in the red corner, next to the icons.

- Is an eagle an important image of Yakut mythology?

- Yes, very important, because it symbolizes the sun and the arrival of spring. This is a bright image. When spring comes in Yakutia, eagles are the first to fly. People see them and say: "We have experienced this winter." The eagles fly away in the fall, but the hero of our film, more precisely, the heroine, because it is an eagle named Tumar - remains with people. And from this moment, the test time begins for them, ”says director Eduard Novikov .

- The film "Tsar-PTITIC" was shot based on the story of the Yakut writer Vasily Yakovlev "with me aged larch." The story takes place in 1930. But in the film we do not see almost no new Soviet era. Your heroes live as if outside of time, their world is limited by the house, behind the threshold of which the endless forest begins.

- It was such a feeling that arose with me when I read the story of Yakovlev. It seemed to me that the attitude of our ancestors was very accurately conveyed there, first of all - their naivety and purity. The old man feels guilty due to the fact that the eagle nest has ruined in his youth. He recalls this thanks to the shaman, and then repentance becomes the through theme of the film.

- Are you talking about a sense of personal guilt? Or transfer it to the whole Yakut people who have lost touch with the past?

There was some kind of void that people try to fill with Orthodoxy and traditional beliefs

- I would say that this is a personal feeling inherent in everyone who was born in Soviet times, survived the pressure of ideology. I was also a pioneer and a Komsomol member. I remember how 1991 came, and all this disappeared, and in return there was some kind of emptiness that people try to fill with Orthodoxy and traditional beliefs. We wanted to tell our story a very simple cinema, understandable to a wide viewer.

Reflecting on the phenomenon of Yakut cinema, critic Anton Dolin has ten causes of his success, among which the most important thing is the connection with the viewer: "Not a single picture is removed for Putin, Minimult, Cannes, Oscars, producer or his beloved. Only for the public."

Cinema battles in Yakutia is a reality. In addition to the state company Sakhafilm, several private film companies work here. Every year, detectives, horror films, historical paintings and works of arthouse cinema are released on the screens of the republic. Movies in the Yakut language enjoy the greatest success. Some of them become national blockbusters. The first directorial work of Eduard Novikov “Ayyy Wal. The Envoy of Heaven” (production of the film company “Art Doyda”) with a budget of three million rubles earned more than ten million in the box office. Also rubles, but in their place, with a larger promotion of the film, there could be dollars.

“Yakut films pay off in the republican box office well,” says Eduard Novikov . - In 2014, I removed the "messenger of heaven", a very touching story of a young singer, whose name was Alexander Samsonov. Ayyy Wal was his stage pseudonym. He passed away very young, at the age of twenty, and his songs are still unusually popular. At the Art Doida film studio, they decided to remove the Bayopic of Ayy Wal - this project turned out to be commercially successful.

In recent years, Sakhavud (the so -called national cinema in Yakutia) has released a number of interesting paintings of different genres. The nuar “My killer” was released in a wide Russian rental in 2016 and received popular recognition from the reviewers of the Kinopoisk site:

“There is no provincial, sluggish presentation or uncertain films.”

“I saw a new, hidden Russia that delighted me.”

“If you go further at such a pace, after some ten years, Yakut films will be a cut above Moscow. And this is not a joke!”

The cash desk of the Yakut film of 2017 was the melodrama about the novice singer "Carel. Invisible Beauty", which earned ten and a half million rubles in the local box office.

-As far as I understand, the “king-bird” also had a very modest budget-three million rubles .

-In my opinion, even less. I don’t know for sure, ”answers Eduard Novikov .

- How can you make a full -length feature movie with this money?

- In our Yakutia, everything is being removed like that. Three million rubles, consider a good budget. Ten years ago, local directors managed to make films for 100-150 thousand, and it still turned out well. The only time that a real blockbuster was shot in Yakutia, a film about Genghis Khan, for a lot of money - it all ended with a scandal. ( The Secret of Genghis Khaana - the 2009 International Project, the joint production of Yakutia, Mongolia and Germany, failed at the box office, collecting half as much as two hundred million rubles spent on its production. - SR)

-Over the past ten years, something has changed? Is there now in Yakutia any program of state support for national cinema?

-There is support, but it is somehow chaotic. In principle, the director known in the republic has a chance to get several million through the Ministry of Culture ( Republic. - SR) . Previously, they willingly gave money for good projects. But this year all programs are cut in connection with the crisis. Therefore, the main support for us is the Yakut viewers who go to our films. The market for local film products is not rich - three cinemas in the capital of the republic and a certain number of cinema halls in district centers (uluses), which, of course, are far from technical perfection. But this is even a kind of plus - films manufacturers do not need to spend money on a high -quality soundtrack, which will still not sound in the harsh conditions of the Yakut film distribution.

That is why the development of the film network in the district centers has become an important point of the republican program "Creation of conditions for the spiritual and cultural development of the peoples of Yakutia for 2012-2019".

“In addition, five million rubles were allocated annually for the development and strengthening of national film production,” says Irina Engelis , head of the Department of Professional Art and Cinema, the Ministry of Culture and Spiritual Development of the RS. -Unfortunately, this year financing for cinema support was reduced, but we have submitted an application to the Republican Ministry of Finance and we hope that after the success of the “king-bird” at the Moscow Film Festival, we will be supported.

The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Sakha believe in the bright future of Sakhavuda. There is no money, but Yakut cinema in trend. On the Internet you can find lists of “ Yakut films that are worth watching ”. This movie certainly has its fans outside the republic. And now, after the verdict of the Moscow Film Festival, their circle will probably expand.

- Yakutia, probably, the only region in Russia, at least I unknown other cases where such a rise in national cinema would take place. What do you associate with this?

In Yakutia, unlike other constituent entities of the Russian Federation, there is its own state film company

- In Yakutia, unlike other constituent entities of the Russian Federation, there is its own state film company Sakhafilm, which was founded in 1992. Its maintenance and wages of employees are funded from the budget of the republic, ”answers Irina Engelis .

- Ninety -second year. It would seem that not the right time to launch the regional film industry?

- It is, when not only film studios, but also industrial enterprises were closed in the country, our filmmakers initiated the creation of a state film company, and the Ministry of Culture and the President of the republic supported this initiative.

The first attempt to realize the dream of their own film studio was made by the Government of Yakutia in 1990. In VGIK, at the courses of Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, several dozen talented graduates of the Yakut schools set off. None returned to his homeland. It seemed that new times did not favors the bold idea. But attempts to learn their own masters of cinema was made in Yakutia again and again, until a generation of national film intelligence appeared by the beginning of the two thousandth. Among them are Eduard Novikov, who in 2001 graduated from the Institute of Cinema and Television in St. Petersburg.