"My film is all that this country is not"

“Hawk is the size of a horse” is a crazy dock about a Shcherbinka ornithologist who reincarnates a woman and builds his “Twin Pix”. We talked to the director

On March 2, the ARTDOCFEST/RIGA documentary films festival opened in Riga. Perhaps the most anticipated prime minister is Sasha’s new fist “Hawk the size of a horse”: the story of the Lydia Ornithologist, who used to be Sergey, and now in a female image he is studying the mysterious creatures of a non -Zhul and builds Black Wigwam from Twin Pix in his own house in Shcherbinka.

Sasha Kulak - director and operator from Belarus - the brightest phenomenon in modern documentary. In Mexico, she shot about local Mennonites, in the USA - about an abandoned mining town, in Minsk - about protests against Lukashenko and always turned a journalistic story into surrealistic. In the same way, she talks about a strange ornithologist from Shcherbinka. At the request of the Cold, the poet and film critic Konstantin Shavlovsky talked with a fist about the report on the back of reality, magical realism during the war and New Belarus.

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The main character of the film is an absolutely amazing person. How did you find it?

- I met Lidia about ten years ago. I then entered the Moscow school of new cinema for the operator, we were given the task of making a portrait of the hero, and my friend, who studied at the Timiryazev Academy, told about her teacher of ornithology Sergey. She said that in the suburbs he had bee hives and goats, he catches birds in the forest, and also strained at the academy, because he began to come to a lecture in the form of Lydia Katashuk and the teaching council did not approve of this.

I began to google him and found this legendary video that the Vgikovsky student shot, where Sergey is shown by an absolute freak: runs around the field, depicts birds, their sounds, movements. For me, this was an example of how not to make a movie about this hero. And I went to the Timiryazev Academy, where they did not want to give my phone number for a very long time and generally recommended that I get acquainted with other teachers. And when I called, Lidia instantly replied: "Come, my whole life is like a movie."

For about three years, I just maintained a connection, periodically came, tried to shoot something and realized that all this was not working. No matter what side I approached the hero, everything was not right.

And when and what worked?

- Once I asked Lydia what dreams she had. And she said that she really wants to remove Twin Peaks. Just during our acquaintance, she built a house on her site and ended in it a red room from Twin Pix. In general, this became the key to working with Lydia on this film: ask her about dreams and realize them together.

It turns out that filming films became the key to the film?

- Yes, and other layers immediately appeared there - for example, these non -Zhili, fictional creatures, about which Lydia also really wanted to make short films.

In general, I thought that the non -Zhuli is amazing creatures, in which both tenderness and undead are at the same time. Such border creatures.

- The did not make an awesome. I have never seen this at all! For Lydia, Nezhuli is truly borderline creatures, because they connect two worlds: the world of forest and the world "Twin Pixes". We shot so that they did not live in the forest, where birds and ornithologist Sergei, and on red velvet, in the world "Twin Picks" and Lydia Katashuk.

But how is it right: Lydia, Sergey or a bird?

- You can do it and so. This will not hurt the heroine, it equally exists in all its dimensions.

Why do we only look at the world that Lydia Katashuk invented, and never see the heroine in another environment, where Sergey lives in a real suburbs, teaches at the Timiryazev Academy, goes to the store and so on?

-From the Timiryazev Academy at some point, by the way, he was fired. Of course, I also shot how Lydia gave lectures, and how we went together to buy building materials, but in all this there was a strong influence of life, which, it seems to me, destroyed all the magic. I just did not have a goal at all to make a film-observation, where I show a person in all his nakedness. I generally do not pretend to be any realism here. I wanted to allow the viewer to become an active participant in the film as a certain performance. I wanted to explore the unsteady and elusive magic, inside which I every time I found myself when meeting Lydia.

Your film received Special Mental at a prestigious documentary film festival in Leipzig and entered the Riga Artdoxte competition. All this happens during the Russian-Ukrainian war. How much does the neighborhood of a “hawk size of a horse” with films about the war in competitions of international festivals seem to be organic to you?

“It seems that this question is very correct and very difficult for me.” We completely finished work on the film in January last year. After the start of the war, I had questions to myself: do I need to release this film? How ethical is it? On the one hand, as you said, it seems completely inappropriate to the neighborhood of such a film with films about the war, because there are more important things than shooting Twin Pixes in Shcherbinka. But, on the other hand, Lydia as a person also lives here and now. And Lydia has her own struggle that does not stop. And this film is not about Russia, its culture, politics or geography. My film is just everything that this country is not.

If you look together “Hawk the size of a horse” and “Maru”, your film about Belarusian* (The heroine of the interview asked about such a spelling. - Approx. "Cold") *protests, in both films there is an almost tangible presence of magic and female. How are they connected with each other?

“It's great that you were striking, that both films are about female.” Because this is how I understand them for myself. They both became for me such a study of femininity. Before working on Mara, I never thought that the fact that I am a woman affect how I perceive the world, how I look at it. And only on the installation of Mary realized that he was actually about the female voice of Belarusian protest. As for the magic, it is probably that, in principle, some stories in which magical realism is initially resonated with me.

If we see magic in everyday life, we will reconfigure our optics and live with the feeling that you can fall into a rabbit hole behind any fence, what will this give us? Can we resist reality better? Or is it, on the contrary, the form of artistic escapism: outside the window is war, and we are taking off Twin Pixes on Shcherbinka so as not to face reality face to face?

- It seems to me that reality is much more complicated than we imagine this. There is an infrared light that the human eye does not see, but it still exists in the spectrum. Our abilities to see, hear and realize some things are actually very limited, and there are a huge number of strata of reality with which we barely come into contact. I am interested in them. Because there are some points when we feel something that cannot be described by words. I do not think that this is about escapism-rather about some sensitivity to the fact that not everything can be clear or understandable.

In an interview after protests in Belarus in 2020, you said that you realized themselves to be Belarusian. What is happening with your Belarusian identity now?

- I continue to realize her. Recently, at the Berlin Film Festival, the opening of the Belarusian independent Bifa movie academy was held, which will represent the interests of Belarusian filmmakers, which I am very happy. This is primarily the merit of Lesha Paluyan, the will of Tchaikovskaya, Dasha Zhuk, Andrei Kutilo, Igor Sukhmanov and Irene Kotelovich. I and nine other directors presented my projects before the European audience, and such a unification seems to me an important step. It is very cool that a platform has appeared, in which Belarusian independent filmmakers will be able to be present in the European and world context.

Now it seems that Belarusian protests are little recall and Belarus appears in media space only in conjunction with Russia and international sanctions.

- It seems to me clear and predictable that there is no Belarusian agenda in the media, because the main focus in Ukraine. And, of course, the support of the Lukashenka regime of Russian military operations is very great. Belarus is under double occupation: Lukashenka and Putin regime. Every day there are news about all new detentions and wild prison dates. The Laureate of the Nobel Prize of the human rights activist Ales Behaletsky was planted for 10 years. Three “rail partisans”, who are accused of sabotage on the railway, according to which the compositions with Russian military equipment went, received from 21 to 23 years. And there are thousands of such examples. More and more often they delay the Belarusians who returned to the country to see relatives. He arrived for several days - and as a result sat in prison for several years. But the Belarusians continue to fight even in the conditions of unprecedented repressions: partisan initiatives operate within the country, Belarusians are fighting as part of the Ukrainian army, many activities and initiatives in the diaspora abroad. Our elected president Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, fortunately, represents a democratic Belarus. It seems to me that the most important thing is that people have united and continue to unite.

Why still strive to raise reality on tiptoe? The reality of Mara is absolutely self -sufficient: auto -zats, military, beatings of protesters. Why did you need Belarusian folklore and surrealism here?

- When I feel that I want to make a film - I always have such a little obsessive moment - when I find this nerve, then I take the camera. And [in the case of Mara] for me, this nerve was a clear understanding that tens of thousands of people around me experience the collapse of their usual reality. They lose the feeling that they can logically, rationally explain it. Everything around is too impossible, too surrealist. Everything that I watched in the media environment from reporting sketches to films about Belarusian protests spoke about the event itself. While thousands of people lived a very strong dissociation process with reality. And I began to explore this particular state.

Is it possible to say that a “hawk size of a horse” is also a kind of study of dissociation, including yours, with the reality of the last 10 years of Russian life?

- If you look from this side, then, probably, this can really be called a form of escapism. And of course, for Lydia, her projects are also a way to cope with reality outside the window, which is quite depressed. Instead of thumping or watching telly, Lydia comes up with how to rebuild the world. At least your own.

How does Lydia change?

- We observe the transformation of the hero who with each new step receives a new ability. Lydia has power to change her appearance in order to change the space around herself, and the episode of creating a doll is about the birth of a new life. Because as a man Sergey is not able to give birth, but in the world of Lydia Katashuk this, as you see, is not an irresistible obstacle. “Hawk -size Hawk” for me is a story about an unhindered desire to change my reality, gaining new abilities, as in a computer game.

Lydia continues to live in Russia?

- So far, yes. Now she, by the way, has already done three growth dolls: Lydia had the goal of achieving an ideal copy, but some technical problems took place with each doll. After that, she had a plan to make small dolls of all the heroes of Twin Pix. And from the last - it seems Lydia wants to make her own copy.