movie to receive an academy award was heard by the sun in nineteen ninety five before that was moscow doesn't believe in two back in ninety eight. so the film's got only fourteen nominations in just seven oscars. strange considering how well. around the world why that and is it a paradox. director of this year's oscar. started as a director in the soviet times one of his first works was the movie wrong starring the country's rock music i don't see such. a says this movie was a rebellion and allowed him to stop thinking through really since then he became one of the gurus and brushes moving the industry. his fields have been receiving much praise in the country and abroad he wanted main project russia's biggest

international film festival in moscow now he's taken his film cry the edge to l.a. hoping to get the world's most prestigious. an oscar. thanks for being on our program. let's start with the oscars why do you think russian films are often acknowledge it's european film festivals whereas the u.s. academy hasn't really favorite films saw good or russian. what do you mean we have received oscars but not enough only seven in oscar history which we participate in one category only best foreign language film. tried to get a different award. you know this is the second time i shift toward in this fight therefore i knew. the film has the right to be nominated.

only when it shows in the us human if it's in a foreign language i really wanted to nominate putting our mushed off for best actor but it didn't work out our film hasn't shown there yet is that can you even be nominated for awards like no there's just one category of there's this discrimination or something you know this is just a law of the us 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 the cinema with movies winning prizes at the biggest festivals spotlight has more. the last ten years have seen ever in the sense in russian cinema from the deep old soviet 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 emerge and as a result one of them is alexiev book of grapes who is how i ended this summer reap

the harvest of the words of the baron on a film festival the film was shot on the real station in the arctic doctors who played it to researchers isolated in frozen expanse one awards the russian all three were has also recently won top award at the chicago international film festival another russian film silent souls who go to triumph and premia with twelve minute long standing in the at this year's been these film festival but it's a fedora too because mythic and poor way to store e of water and death three awards that include in one of the best camera work the post so we rush and cinema is asking for more and more attention cherished dream now is getting an academy award the last time they were shown picture god it was more than fifteen years ago. you nominated your film his wife's diary or an oscar in two thousand right. what right just so you're

saying you have some experience and you know how these things work once a film has been nominated producers promoters and so on make additional effort to promote the nominated film and to enable it to win well if you're interested i can say only about my experience in los angeles when there came two thousand them according to the rules of the canon me we had to choose a publicist and the company that would the represent us promote us and so on and so we went to a meeting and saw three people sitting there one of them smoking a cigar and they looked exactly how we thought typical american slope with this said it's 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 they just roared with laughter that's when i realized that making a good film wasn't enough you also have to can pay me for at least three months.

five thousand academy members but you have only one official film show 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 organize more shows other than this free official one yes you can show it as many times as you want you know best you were also allowed to give discs to academy members is that no longer allowed that there's a pretty serious years to go there for bated. were they offering bribes along with this list of i think this could have been the means of pretext for forbidding as more anyway 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. the

russians think about how a russian film can win an oscar what should it take for a russian movie spotlights has tried to find that. there well recently a russian look at all the ads has been included in the list of sixty five nominees who are not that let's see what people think a russian movie should have been awarded so. i think it should be some real situation from the everyday life of an ordinary russian person this 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 less shooting and 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 relative good and bad the real situation facing our country our russian mentality if shown in the right way we

miss an oscar and i think real situations can serve as a good foundation for us to win an oscar life in russia as it is without the silver lining with too often see in the russian movies i think the truth could win an oscar it should have more truth however it should still be. good if i think we need some new movie directors who really understand the great russian soul and are able to interpret it in a way that could touch foreign hearts out of god that she hears she's got a question for our guest but would you have a compromise to win an oscar. the generally speaking is winning an oscar 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. i believe it's the word for one's standing as well as because you're worth something in filmmaking you know but what can spirits oscars are

a matter of your rating mediately you either become a leader or you don't. remember mr lee hall 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 but i mean 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 the 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 india and it certainly needs a story. that. doesn't need the truth but. 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. of steam train. 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 wouldn't you doesn't matter whether he's driving or someone else's 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 much golf driving on one of them and when i told them to overtake again there was a chance it wouldn't work this was going on for real. me he started overtaking and you should have heard our film current 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 seem to you or are they rather interested in things that your film shows like there's a russian steam baths with girls and snow and other stereotypical things so what

we're showing is first and foremost a very dramatic story and a lot of there is what kind of truth are they interested in about their story firstly the short count is exaggerated to we have a big three shots only and secondly your phone 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 well but they're waging a war in iraq. that in the armed conflicts or happening in other places all the time so it's very important issue determining who their enemies and who isn't. a russian. flight will be back shortly will continue this interview in less than a minute stay with us.

dear mom i'm sorry that i had to do this i've been in so much pain in the past year that i can't take it anymore the stomach and chest pains have been getting worse and no doctor has been able to help me please know that i'll finally be at peace and with no more pain i wish i could have had a life with elizabeth always pictured her being my wife and mother to my kids i love you all see you all in heaven when your time comes i'm going to meet jesus christ. thousands of u.s. troops in iraq received one of these drugs a drug called lariam and it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick the question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about its rare side effects serious life changing side effects.

wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports. come back welcome back to spotlight i'm just a reminder that my guest in the studio. a film director whose recent movie the edge has been chosen as the russian nominee for the oscar this year. we were talking about the truth is your film based on a true story. i know the script is fiction but did this story really happen or is

it just a parable. you know the story's completely fictional but some of the scenes. could have happened. but on settlements for former german prisoners certainly existed back then there's even more so. he task was to create. a true story and the illusion in a good sense and that's something i really wanted to achieve but there was one thing i couldn't understand 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 needed train if they had nowhere to go to just fool around with nowhere to the train it could get there from the other side just to stop there is. no film they were. 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. 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 and 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 no i mean when you're a film 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 and fifty crew members only living in a closed space for that long these people are really become really they've become like a long large family. why did he choose the war theme so much has already been filmed about the war. and the my film is 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 what you said you wanted to make a film about a winner writes as a film director you can get your message to the audience that you're in between people and gods some directors believe that they do you 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 normal story you may go out to do and get here on the head and you know no words. going on. you mean like myself and fear for your children so anything can happen to them but that you worry is the age when we may be watching each other in some way. i'm gonna start killing each other. this is what is interesting. so i believe it's an absolutely more than a film. you shot the film captain now adds i also read that you are also

going to show film about how are you saying he's yes that's true. 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. of course i know that we won't change anything by making just one or two affirms

that much but when little tolstoy. he was thinking about how to change things and how to bring people closer together in tell them let's stop at some point. of saying that films should be either about war or love otherwise they're not our spectator what about both is yours about war or love not war it's about enemies and the victories span love love anyway those films must be about love otherwise and guess who. how would you characterize the genre of your film it's really hard to determine. coffin i would choke about how to label it drama yes sure at the same time it has something of a melodrama so we can see you to new genre or dram boster. like make it to me. in his time

a label for his film he called at home among strangers and easter. but your first festival screening was in toronto didn't yield any results or offers how on earth will this film be perceived in the west but. a festival is very special in general first of all because of its. buyers and distributors from all over the world gather there. that's why i'm asking that he and i have been deer three times with various films so why go walk or is spray sentiment that you know it's that after the film is shown you get million so it was just asking you to explain the story that we showed the film five times and not a single question and followed about why the characters lived there they were mostly both some emotional things but so i do. sense the toronto already it's understood the film so will members of the cademy but he wanted them by the

way speaking of offered i read reports that after your film captive was released proposals from america to do a remake of the action taking place in iraq did that story continue. our guests but at this point would have signed their preliminary agreement you know general i'm looking american soul superposed to remake our film walk they stay in new york and in irish 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 it was. because of luck but you make films they're not bound to a place or a particular time what's important is these films have

a human dimension of war within maybe your 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 has 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 this which and since then till or was it your chosen path to go from documentary to feature. absolutely yeah it was purely done until you know i had felt quite comfortable doing documentaries because i had never made a film score on television and 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 had 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 sells 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. it's like in our time it was said about television

a friend of mine said this once he said it was going to be cooler than t.v. news analysis but what can be even cooler is synthesis. there is one more thing i tell my students and young the film directors if someone tries to make a feature film one soon he saw 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. is it possible to return to making documentary films for making feature phelps a certain point. you know i have a workshop. where we try to choose filmmaking not only all future films which. my students make to through each year 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 approach to a man a prominent theatrical direct turn in the other one at the. well there's not been a single film about him and that's what i'm saying that i tried so many times to get into he's a rehearsal but he would mean yet if he's saying 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.

powerplay plans for russia to build vietnam's first ever nuclear plant fuel closer links and that's us president medvedev as an on away for a summit of asian nations. allegations of a new spy scandal could threaten relations between russia and georgia all of the experts say this is just another p.r. stunt. and funny business a poll shows the most trusted opinion maker in the u.s. as a t.v. comedian while president obama doesn't even make the top twenty. four to ninety coming to live from moscow i'm marina joshie welcome to the program now southeast asia's top nations are meeting in vietnam and russia's president is at

the summit to ready for talks on everything from energy security to responding to natural disasters and working together in space we will use his two day trip to hold separate talks with a host nation we have now is a close ally from the soviet times and trade between moscow and highway it's already in the billions of dollars during this visit dozens of new agreements will be signed of on the most important a deal to construct vietnam's first nuclear power plant and as artie's maria financial reports it's something the socialist republic is counting on. vietnam in the twenty first century it might look like a throwback to cooled. but it's not the case vietnamese more than oil you see its economy growing at an increasing rate and it's looking to its old allies to help spur that alone. will cooperate in with many countries.