Andrey Gryazev
Andrey Gryazev is back in the director's chair with his new documentary movie Tomorrow - which was just one of the Russian movies that screened at the BFI London Film Festival.
We caught up with the director to chat about the new movie and the inspiration behind it.
- Your new movie is Tomorrow so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
The film is a mirror of the contemporary Russian civil society and its formation.
- So where did the idea for the movie come from?
Before 'Zavtra' (a.k.a. Tomorrow) I have already made a few short documentary films within which acute social issues were raised and the image of the government was emerging as a constantly present character in these films, so for my next project I wanted to have other characters who would counteract with it.
- To what were the major challenges for you as you were making this movie?
There were many challenges but the main one was to cut out money out of my family’s budget in order to go out and shoot the 'Voina' members in their natural habitat.
- So how did you go about becoming involved with them? And how keen were they to let you into their world?
Once I have decided that they were to become the characters in my next film, I contacted them and it was relatively easy because it was before they became too famous, or rather infamous.
They did take some time in order to do a background check on me before they let me into their world. It became a symbiotic relationship beneficial for both parties.
After they have had some bad experience being filmed with bad/faulty equipment, inadequate camera operators before they met me, it was helpful for them to use me as a professional filmmaker in order to distribute their videos over the Internet and thus further publicize their performed actions.
I was filming them and thus having material for their EPKs and videos and at the same time this very footage became my rushes for my own independent project.
- You must have had your own opinions and views on Voina before you started making this movie so how did you see those views change as you got to know them and got a better understanding of them?
When I was filming them I was an activist and when I started editing the raw footage I was a director who had to keep the group’s ideology at an arm’s length.
I could not judge or criticize them while I was filming them, I just wanted to capture everything and every action of theirs as it was, without any meddling or judgment from me as this would prevent that goal from happening. Only when I started editing I allowed myself to have an opinion.
I would like to add that their release from detention was a turning point because in spite of me filming them for another six months after that, none of that footage made it into the final film.
- Tomorrow is screening at the BFI London Film Festival so how excited are you about being over here? And how important are festival like London is getting movies out on a global platform?
It means a lot for me to be able to show my film at LFF. Festivals and film distribution are two very different things and when one has problems of securing distribution, showing one’s film at festivals is a perfect way to secure an audience for a film and make sure it gets seen.
- How have you found the response to the movie on the festival circuit? And how has the movie been met in your native Russia?
I am quite surprised that my film got accepted to such different film festivals as LFF and an Iranian film festival, because they have such different audiences.
There was a difference, for example, between screening the film in Russia and in England. There were moments in the film where the Russian audience were holding their breath as opposed to the English audience who were laughing at the exact same bit (e.g. where the little boy is eating sausage).
In Russia there were people who came up to me after the screening and asked me how they were supposed to live on after seeing this film.
- What do you want people to take away from this movie when they watch it?
As a filmmaker I am satisfied about the general reaction to the film, especially I am delighted by the number of debates that have occurred about this particular issue.
I don’t like it when the audience comes out of a cinema after watching a film and just goes 'Oh, I get it!...'
Before the film was released there were two groups of people, as far as 'Voina' was concerned, the people who sympathised with them and the ones who did not.
After the release of film this division doubled, meaning that now there are people who like the group but not the film and the other way around, or they like both, or neither.
As a documentary filmmaker it was not my intention to change anything in the lives of these particular people, despite what was and was not acceptable for me personally. It was however my intention to capture the events as their transpired and show them in their exactitude for the future generations to see.
- You already have documentaries such as Sanya and Sparrow and Miner's Day under your belt so what is it about this genre of film that you seem to like so much?
The ability to make my own independent statement because to do the same in a narrative film requires the finance I did not have.
- Would you ever give some thought about going into narrative features?
My BA degree is to do with being a director of narrative films and I am already working on a screenplay for my next feature film which is based on a true story.
- Finally what is next for you?
I feel that the boundaries of a documentary filmmaking are becoming too narrow for me and I am slowly growing out of that, so a narrative film and a theatre show are my next projects.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw