The documentary film "Cinematic Language of the Era: Marlen Khutsiev" is timed to coincide with the upcoming centenary of the master. In our film, talking about the life, work and dreams of Marlen Khutsiev, we focus the viewer's attention on the master's unique film language. And through cinematic language we reveal the director's personality.
Andrei Tarkovsky is the most famous Russian director, often called a genius during his lifetime. He made relatively few films, but each has become a classic of world cinema, including "Andrei Rublev," "Solaris," "Mirror," and "Stalker." His films seem to be crafted from air, water, fire, deep emotions, and even his own dreams. This art is profoundly sincere and confessional, but what about the creator behind it? What was this god-like figure like, living a mortal life filled with weaknesses, fears, and doubts?
In the world, there is a city-port Odesa, which was specially created as a refuge for people of different nationalities and religions. Humor is a special language that helps people from Odesa to communicate and get along with each other. Legends are spreading about Odesa's humor and accent. But - a paradox - people are constantly leaving it. It is loved, but it is left as a child leaves his mother. On the example of this city and its inhabitants, we wanted to understand - why people flee from their cities. We tried to find the answer taking pictures of Odesa citizens in Germany, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Austria, France and other places. Michael Zhvanetskij, Roman Kartsev, Leonid Barats and Rostislav Khait Victor Loshak, Oksana Fandera, Valerij Todotovskij, Mikhail and Anatoly Kontush and many others are telling their stories and giving their opinions on what is the phenomenon of the city by the Black Sea.
To be somewhere precise yet stand nowhere at all, to embody one’s convictions, yet never miss the essential, to rise up and be present at the critical moment, to bear witness to a world waiting to tell itself and be retold, to come and go, both at once, abandoning reckless speed, but rather gently touching the human soul with images, with whispered words, the cracks in the wall of life: this is the choreography masterfully created in the film Beyond Territories, Valerie Osouf’s portrait of the world acclaimed filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako.
In Осtober, 2015, Marlen Khutsiev was to turn 90. The master had no intention of retiring, he was working at the new movie, which he had been contemplating for years. The crew was lucky to be allowed on the set of this film about the relationship of two Titans of Russian literature, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. The shooting process, recorded over the period of many days, constitutes the main part of this documentary entitled «Khutsiev. Action Starts!». It also includes Khutsiev’s reflections on the nature of creative work and his dramatic creative biography.
Marlen Martynovich Khutsiev (Russian: Марле́н Марты́нович Хуци́ев; 4 October 1925 – 19 March 2019) was a Georgian-born Soviet and Russian filmmaker best known for his cult films from the 1960s, which include I Am Twenty and July Rain. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1986. Khutsiev studied film in the directing department at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), graduating in 1952. He worked as a director at the Odessa film studio from 1952 to 1958, and worked full-time as a director at Mosfilm from 1965 onward. Khutsiev's first feature film, Spring on Zarechnaya Street (1956), encapsulated the mood of the Khrushchev Thaw and went on to become one of the top box-office draws of the 1950s. Three years later, Khutsiev launched Vasily Shukshin "as a new kind of popular hero" by starring him in Two Fyodors. His two masterpieces of the 1960s, however, were panned by the authorities, forcing Khutsiev into something of an artistic silence. In 1978, Khutsiev began teaching film directing master classes at the VGIK.) His 1991 film Infinitas won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.
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