margetts why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports. hello again to welcome to spotlight as we show our take time today my guest is i didn't see. this russian oscar hopeful as a movie called right the edge the last russian movie to receive an academy award was burned by the sun in nineteen ninety five before that was moscow doesn't believe in back in ninety eight. so the and russian films got only fourteen nominations in just seven oscars and this strange considering how well russian

cinema is regarded around the world why that. is it a paradox we're asking. director of this year's oscar that. started as a director back in the soviet times one of his first works was the movie rock starring the country's rock music i don't see such a. says this movie was a rebellion and allowed him to stop thinking three. since then he became one of the gurus and russia is moving to an industry. his fields have been receiving much praise in the country and abroad who want the main project russia's biggest international film festival in moscow now he's taking his film cry the edge to l.a. hoping to get the world's most prestigious award an oscar.

mr richardson thanks for being on our program hello let's start with the oscars why do you think russian films are often a knowledge of european festivals whereas the u.s. academy hasn't really favored their films or russian so what do you mean we have received oscars but not enough only seven in oscar history but we participate in one category only best foreign language film. tried to get a different award though. you know this is the second time i have to you can pour it in this fight therefore it's my newly subtlety solve it now film has the right to be nominated in all categories only when it shows in new york human if it's in a foreign language i really wanted to nominate pledging our mushed off for best actor but it didn't work out our film hasn't shown there yet can you even be nominated for black no there's just one category of there's this discrimination or something you know this is just too long for the u.s.

academy and we have to follow it. unless we make a film that american film distributers want to show immediately this year has been particularly successful for us with movies winning prizes at the biggest festivals spotlight him or. the last ten years have seen everything they sense in russian cinema from the deep graces the industry had relied on government support for years it was forced to learn to take care of itself the transition was painful with new names and merchants as a result one of them isn't except local groups whose how i ended it so much we don't have this the words the berlin on the film festival the film was shot on the real station in the arctic doctors who played it to research is isolated in frozen expanse want to warrants the russian all three law has also recently won top. ford

at the chicago international film festival another russian film silent swords to triumph and premia with twelve minute long. at this year's vin these film festival critics say for those two guys mythic and kuwait extortive want and death three awards including one for the best can rule. the post so we rush in cinema is asking for more and more attention cherished dream now is getting an academy award. or should it be to god it was more than fifteen. you nominate your film his wife's diary for an oscar in two thousand right right just so you're saying you have some experience and you know how these things work once a film has been nominated can producers promoters and so on make additional effort to somehow promote the nominated film and to enable it to when i would this

well if you're interested i can silly about my experience in los angeles when there came two thousand. according to the rules of the canon me we had to choose a publicist that come in the company that with the represent us promoters and so on and so we want to meeting and saw three people sitting there one of them smoking a cigar and they looked exactly how we thought typical americans look what would have said in our film and they liked it and then they asked how much money we had us all i said we should find a rock five thousand dollars and we just roared with laughter that's when i realized that making a good film wasn't enough you also have to can paint for at least three months there are five thousand academy members but you have only one awful film show and that's free of charge then you have to organize everything else you have to advertise to make your film known this requires tremendous effort and then you're going to. more shows other than this free official one yes you can show it as many

times as you can it best you were also allowed to give discs to academy members is that no longer allowed. years ago they forbade it and were they offering bribes along with this is the list of i think this could have been the means of pretext for forbidding as more than any way we have the right to organize shows in other places as well as los angeles and we are planning to show the film in new york is there are quite a number of academy members living there so it's quite a big job that with wires phones in africa and a certain knowledge of how these things work well now let's see what the russians think about how a russian phil can win an oscar what should it take to win an oscar for a russian movie spotlights one of the has tried to find that. hey there well recently a russian movie called ads has been included in the least sixty five nominees who are not that let's see what people think

a russian movie out in order to win this award goes on which is i think it should be some real situation from the everyday life of an ordinary russian person the story should show a russian character it should be a touching film showing the depth of the great russian so. i think it should have many russian elements it should have list shooting more russian reality we have a very beautiful nature which would be a very good addition to any story our russian traditions should be at the heart of this film. the truth our reality the good and bad the real situation facing our country our russian mentality if shown in the right way when it's an oscar and i think real situations can serve as a good foundation for us to win the oscar life in russia as it is without the silver lining with too often see in the russian movies i think the truth could without an oscar it should have. truth however it should still be

a form of what if i think we need some new movie directors who really understand the great russian soul and arrival to interpret it in a way that could touch foreign hearts of god that here says that a question. would you have a compromise to win an oscar. the generally speaking is winning an oscar a compromise or not well i believe that the highest award in international cinematography so it's not a compromise right you win an oscar because you have a certain standing not for a compromise you don't want i believe that some were good for one's standing as well as because you're worth something in filmmaking you know but it was like in spirits oscars are a matter of your rating mediately you either become a leader or you don. remember mr me hell call telling me that having won his oscar his started finding budgets and producers for whatever films he wanted to make.

this is most probably true. so what compromises are we talking about the muslims and there can be no compromise but you heard the majority of people in our survey say that we need the truth but that we should see the truth in films is anyone in the us academy really interested in that truth or do they prefer a story. well than a film with a russian american or even indian it certainly needs a story. but doesn't need the truth. you know the mean trouble for most russian films is that their luck a good story or a well told story for the truth i'm certainly for the truth when we filmed afterward to mush gone driving in. he had to learn to drive to type so of steam trains. i support this kind of truth i want to make a viewer or and i can remember and believe what they see. i actually disagree with

you as a viewer i don't give a damn whether moscow knows how to drive trains or not or whether a man playing a pilot say tom cruise actually knows how to buy the planes that's a different thing whether this kind of a plane can really land on an aircraft carrier. who cares whether they can or cannot fly and now disagree with me because you're referring to mechanics doesn't matter whether he's driving or someone else is but the actor also shows an emotional response in that moment so there is a difference who were there we show was back more of the actors face. when the train races were filmed for real. and we were driving with our camera along side the trains with a must call for driving one of them and when i told them to overtake again there was a chance it wouldn't work if this was going on for real. me he's torn it over taking

you should have heard our film currently scream. and that's the kind of emotions we want our audience to feel this is a film director talking and one who just finished making a film i think when people were talking about the truth they had something different in mind they want to see the truth about life about history about themselves the truth about russia. as you're going to america i mean are they interested in the truth about the russians are they rather interested in things that your film shows like bears and russians teams with girls and snow and other stereotypical things well what we're showing is first and foremost a very dramatic story and a lot of barriers to what kind of truth are they interested in about their firstly the short count is exaggerated to we have a billion three shots only and secondly conform to wow i mean there was nothing

stereotypical about it our film is a body a winner someone who won the war and met a defeated opponent a young german lady but i believe this story is something americans should identify with as while they're waging a war in iraq. in the armed conflicts or happening in other places all the time so it's a very important issue in determining who their enemies and who isn't says i like seeing cheats in a russian film director squad light blue back shortly we'll continue this interview in less than a minute stay with us. hungry for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers.

quote them back welcome back to spotlight i'm al gore and often just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is. a film director whose recent movie the edge a cry has been chosen as the russian nominee for the oscar. scott it's mr. we were talking about the truth that is your film based on its true story the look at the end i know the script is fiction but did this story really happen or is it

just a parable in it that you know the film what. you know the stories completely fictional but some of the scenes situations that definitely could have happened. but i settlements for former german prisoners certainly existed back then your mind bears even more so. he task was to create an illusion i was a true story and illusion in a good sense used and that's something i really wanted to achieve but there was one thing i couldn't understand what these people lived in inhumane conditions in the middle of nowhere that's why their settlement was called the edge because even the train tracks up there they were working nonstop but what exactly were they doing there and why did they need a train if they had nowhere to go to just pull around. no air to the train could get there from the other side just to stop there is. no film they were lumbering.

now it took you more than a year to make this film which is quite a long time by modern standards you're always exaggerating the actual shooting to ground eight months only. you talked about having to torture. as a film director and this wasn't something you enjoyed but it was your job. do you think it was worth the effort yourself and others making people spend so much time in such harsh conditions. well you might see you well i can see that no we didn't truly need it. because you see for me as for the i mean it wasn't just a film that more it made john if it was something else something related very closely to me that this picture was a living being and i cannot treat him badly that this is in what way

was it related to you was it a story of your family or what but no i mean when you're thirty something for eight months and then you're prepared for six months and then you have the post-production period for another eight months so when you have a hundred fifty crew members only living in a closed space for that long these people are really become really good and they become like a long large family. why does he choose the war theme so much has already been filmed about the war. films not about the war at all not exactly but practically it's right after the war that i talked about that already. ironically doesn't matter to me when a story happens in this particular story just coincided with the period right after the end of world war two actually i'm more interested in a man who finds himself on the edge when he doesn't know what will happen to

him next what that is going to look at you said you wanted to make a film about a winner writes as a film director. your message to the audience that you're in between people and gods as some directors believe that they think this is something that's russians need today to remember and to think of themselves as winners that would have to i believe it's a very morning story you may go out to do and get here on the head and you know no awards. going on. you mean like myself and fear for your children so anything can happen to them but the key word is the age when we may be watching each other and some we come down and start killing each other. this is what is interesting. so i believe it's an absolutely more than a film. in. the film captain now adds i also read that you are also

going to should film about how are you here. but why is it because you think it's important now. yes and actually the same with captive where there are only three characters two russian soldiers and a young chechen lad who was first taken prisoner as their enemy at that which is and then they walk to their unit for twenty four hours and their relationship changes yes but that was because it's not important that they do for a half nikolay like in the edge if the male character who can't even say a word in russian is german but if you really feel that the person you're with is close to you in a spiritual sense or due to romance then an entirely new relationship develops much of course i know that too we won't change anything by making just one or two

affirms but when little tolstoy. he was thinking about how to change things and how to ring people closer together in tell them let's stop at some point. of saying that thelma's should be either about war or love otherwise they're not our spectators what about both is yours about war or love not war and it's about enemies and the big tourists and love love anyway those films must be about love otherwise and yes hello. how would you characterize the genre of your film it's really hard to determine. coffin i would choke about how to label it in drama and yes sure at the same time it has something of a mellow drama so we can see you to new genre or dram boster drawn buster. as like me get them invented in his time

a label for his film he calls at home among strangers and easter. but your first festival screening wasn't around so didn't yield any results or offers how on earth will this film be perceived in the west but. the toronto festival is very special in general first of all because of its. wires and distributors from all over the world together there. that's why i'm asking that i have been there three times with various films like a walk or a space spree sentiment that after the film is shown you get millions so it was just asking you to explain the story that we showed the film five times and not a single question of followed about why the characters lived there they were mostly about some emotional things but so. since the toronto audience understood the

film so will members of the cademy but he wanted them by the way speaking of offers i read through the pores that your film captive was released proposal from america to do a remake of the action taking place in iraq did that story continue. our guests but at this point who have signed up for a living there are a green mentors if you know general look in american soul superposed to remake our film walk based in new york and in our research filmmaker want siri make. some reason i have had good luck in america i have won several festivals there although they're not as significant as in europe. but we walk was a great success there. but because of luck but you make films that are not bound to a place or

a particular time what's important is these films have a human dimension of war within the me a ride but still all these stories are russian to a great extent except perhaps walk it's going to i have a personal impression that your essence as a documentary author can be seen in your feature films. just began with documentaries i recall a film rock. brilliant piece watched by all of my generation then you switch to feature films how did that happen was the switch to the book and said dental or was it your chosen path to go from documentary to feature. absolutely yeah it was purely down until you know i had felt quite comfortable doing documentaries because i had never made a film score on television and i had no interviews in my documentary. i just tried to document for even to reconstruct it to some extent however it so happened that i

was to make a documentary about a belly dancer olga specific to a who was ninety five by that time and as we were ready to fly to new york she died that so i have this crazy idea to trying to make it feature film although i was sure nothing good would result out of it you know how much one has to overcome bureaucratic financial another obstacles but i do then surely somehow everything worked fine you know i was able to make my first feature film she's ells maniac and sooner. i realized that this was mine in i was sorie hadn't been doing it before it was a world of difference in terms of atmosphere unlike making documentaries you construct who live here and you're in charge and this is a responsible job but it's very exciting because like in our time it was said about

television a friend of mine said this once you said it was going to be cooler than t.v. news analysis but what can be even cooler as synthesis. is to show that there is one more thing i tell my students and young film directors if someone tries to make a film once in he's or her on if no matter at what age i can guarantee one hundred percent he or she would never give it up even though he or she has never done it before but when you get. there is it possible to return to making documentary films for making peter phelps certainly. you know i have a workshop. where we try to choose filmmaking not only all future films that. my students make to thier own speech here want documentary and one feature it's a very interesting experience. and i believe it is necessary now i want to make

two documentaries one about that the new protests are no match for man in prominent theatrical direct turn in the other one. i knew well there's not been a single film about him and that's what i'm saying i tried so many times to get into he's a rehearsal but he won't let me know yet if he's seeing all these actors would dream of getting into my movie i can only wish him good luck thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest today was a film director as. the edge has been chosen as the russian nominee for the oscars and that's it for now from all of us here we'll be back with more until then stay in our team and take care as about.

russia and nato joined forces in to destroy heroin and opium lands in afghanistan wiping out two hundred fifty million dollars worth of narcotics the operation came as a result of increased pressure from moscow to block the flood of heroin entering russia after months of planning the raid in the mountains near the border with pakistan took less than four hours. reports say georgia has brought up twenty people allegedly working for a russian spy network tbilisi has yet to confirm or deny the reports diplomatic ties between russia and georgia were severed in two thousand and eight following the war in south. the european union agrees to a new financial bailout system with major players tired of paying for weaker

state's fiscal blunders the plan includes a permanent fund to aid the euro in times of crisis it also gives the e.u. the power to scrutinize member states national budgets. and that brings you up to date next to the alley on the shows how we special as host alyona takes on fox news and presents the show as anchorman glenn beck. for the full story we've got it for the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. on this.