Director Damien Audul shot his feature debut, Le Souffle, for just five million francs. This ascetic black and white story about the growing up of a fifteen-year-old teenager in the wilderness resurrects the radical traditions of great auteur cinema (Odul himself admires Dreyer, Bergman, Tarkovsky and Sokurov). Odul's film is a bright antithesis to the films of the “middle class”, self-sufficient, self-satisfied and deadly boring cinema, which, alas, is not becoming less common in France.

The Russian men's championship still has a super final to hold The club volleyball season in our country is ending largely according to pre-start forecasts. At the beginning of the season, any fan more or less knowledgeable in volleyball, having carefully studied the team compositions, could predict the super finalists. The current champion, the capital's MSTU-Luzhniki, is against the most titled Russian volleyball club, Belgorod's Lokomotiv-Belogorye.

The winner of the first round will leave for Cyprus before voting Preparations for the second round of presidential elections in Ingushetia began with a scandal. According to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, supporters of FSB General Murat Zyazikov filed nine complaints with the republican prosecutor's office about violations of the law during Sunday's voting. They are all about bribing voters.

The band Aavikko performed at the 16 Ton club There are two very stylish musical trends in the world - surf rock and lo-fi. The first is not new at all (the Sixties Beach Boys and The Ventures are considered classic surf bands), the second is a couple of decades younger. Sonic Youth were among the first to use a specially spoiled “lo-fi” sound.

The Historical Museum and Krokin Gallery became addicted to gambling The exhibition “The Queen of Spades” (cards in life; life in cards)”, which opened recently at the Historical Museum, is a “direct successor” to the huge exhibition of the Russian Museum “Game and Passion”. “Game and Passion” was exhibited two years ago at the Stroganov Palace in St. Petersburg, and a year ago at the Arts Center on Neglinnaya in Moscow.

Our athletes became leaders of the world championship Unexpectedly for experts, the Russian women's team is performing successfully at the World Curling Championship taking place these days in Bismarck (North Dakota, USA). After five rounds, our team, with four wins and one loss, shares first place with the teams of Norway, Denmark and Scotland. This result is surprising because at the recent Olympics in Salt Lake City, the Russians took last place without any options.

Former Russian diplomat Platon Obukhov, accused of espionage, may be sent for compulsory treatment. According to Interfax, specialists from the Institute named after. Serbsky was declared insane. According to the examination, the ex-diplomat suffers from schizophrenia and is unable to control his actions. At the same time, psychiatrists concluded that at the time of the crime, Mr.

Yesterday, the nervous situation in the Duma was also facilitated by the fact that the former chairman of the committee on credit organizations, Alexander Shokhin, asked the committee on rules to suspend the procedure for resigning parliamentary powers. Mr. Shokhin was planning to leave for Renaissance Capital, and his desire to stay in the Duma immediately caused controversy among deputies.

The battle for the right to be the chief controller has become public The behind-the-scenes struggle for the right to become the first in the financial control system, which has been waged by the Accounts Chamber and the Ministry of Finance for several months, yesterday became public. This was facilitated by the Federation Council, on whose initiative the scientific and practical conference “Unified Concept of State Financial Control in the Russian Federation” was held.

Avant-garde prints are back in fashion Avant-garde printed graphics have become a favorite theme of exhibitions in the world's largest museums. Our newspaper has already written about the exhibition “The Book of the Russian Avant-Garde” that opened at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (No. 55 of March 29, 2002) . Almost simultaneously, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented the exhibition “Out of the Box.

Vladimir Mirzoev was sure of this when he directed Pinter’s “The Lover” This year, for the first time in many years, Mirzoev’s name was included in the Golden Mask poster in the “best director” category. Finally. Without this tireless troublemaker, who transforms any classical text so that the author himself would not recognize it, the cultural landscape of the capital would be much duller.

The Miko Masters exhibition figure skating tournament, in which leading Russian and French athletes took part, has ended in France. The tournament, which was a team match between the teams of two countries, was won by the hosts - 3:1, although in this case this fact had no fundamental significance.

The Austrians will build a pulp and paper mill in Bashkiria It appears that the Russian forest industry has become extremely popular with both domestic and Western investors. As the Vremya Novostey newspaper learned, a new pulp and paper mill will be built in Bashkiria. The project is estimated at 65.5 million euros, and its launch is expected to take place in 2003. In the first three months of this year, almost a dozen new investment projects in the timber processing industry became known.

Excess of directors at Domodedovo Yesterday there was a paradoxical changing of the guard at the Domodedovo Airlines (DAL) office. The local police, who worked under a contract with the private management of the company, gave up their positions to the soldiers of the private security company, invited by the stewards of the state stake in DAL. Despite this, the administrative conflict in Domodedovo remains unprecedented in modern Russian reality.

Starting today, Russian peacekeepers begin patrolling the Tkvarcheli region of Abkhazia. Your correspondent was informed about this by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces for Peacekeeping Forces, Lieutenant General Valery Evnevich, who arrived in Georgia to inspect the “blue helmets” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to him, the decision to patrol was made at the request of the Georgian side.