hello again to welcome to. the show our take time today my guest is. this russian oscar hopeful is a movie called the edge the last movie to receive an academy award was burned by the sun in nineteen ninety five before that was moscow doesn't believe in two back in ninety eight. so the russian films got only fourteen nominations in just seven oscars. strange considering how well cinema around the world why that. is it's a paradox we're asking. director of this year's oscars 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. says this movie was a rebellion and allowed him to stop thinking three. since then he became one of the gurus to make 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 taken his film cry the edge to l.a. hoping to get the world's most prestigious award. thanks for being on our program. let's start with the oscars why do you think russian films are often acknowledge its european film festivals whereas the u.s. academy hasn't really favored films or russian. 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 given to help all try to get a different award. you know this is the second time i have taken part in this fight therefore it's my newly supping to solve it now film has the right to be nominated in all categories only when it shows in the u.s. human if it's in a foreign language i really wanted to nominate 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 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 in the 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 merchant as a result one of them is alexy pickle grapes who is how i ended this summit to have this the words of the berlin 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 but a triumph and premia with twelve minute long standing in the at this year's vin these film festival critics say for those two guys mythic and kuwait extortive water and death. three awards including one for the best can rule. the posts 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 producers promoters and so on make additional effort to 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 and the company that would they 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 would have 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 we just roared with laughter that's when i realized that making a good film wasn't enough you also have to can paint fourth list three months. five thousand academy members but you have only one awful 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 three official one yes you can show it as many times as you want to 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 you forbade it and were they offering bribes along with this young woman. but 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 russians think about how a russian film can win an oscar what should it take to win an oscar for a russian movie spotlights on the has tried to find that. had their well recently resolutely called the ads has little clue that in the least sixty five nominees who are not that let's see what people think a russian movie should have been awarded to. one which was written 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 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 reality good and bad the real situation facing our country our russian mentality if shown in the right way to win is 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 a form of art but 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 out of god that he hears has got a question for our guest. 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 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 what it's like can screw or it's oscars are a matter of your rating mediately you either become a leader or you don't. 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 but i mean so what compromises are we talking about yes there was listen 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 indian it certainly needs a story. that. doesn't need the truth but. you know the mean trouble for most russian films is that they're 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 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 here because you're referring to mechanics doesn't matter whether he's driving or someone else's but the actor also shows an emotional response in that moment so there's a difference who were there we show was done back with more of the actors face it when the train races were filmed for real. and we were driving with our camera alongside the trains with a much golf 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 or are they rather interested in things that your film shows like there's a russian girls and snow and other stereotypical things well what we're showing is first and foremost a very dramatic story and a lot of there's what kind of truth are they interested in about their firstly the short count is exaggerated to we have a billion three shots 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 lady but i believe this story is something americans should identify

with as while they're waging a war in iraq. and armed conflicts or happening in other places all the time so it's very important. determining who their enemies and who isn't says a russian film director spotlight will be back shortly we'll continue this interview in less than a minute stay with us. wealthy british style. it was time. for the. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy cause a report on. more

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. operations are today. walk him back welcome back to spotlight just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is. a film director whose recent movie the edge has been chosen as the russian nominee for the oscar this. spring. 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. know the stories completely fictional but some of the scenes situations the definitely could have happened. but i settlements for former german prisoners certainly existed back then bears even more so. he task was to create an illusion i was a true story and illusion in a good sense and that's something i really wanted to achieve 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 need a train if they had nowhere to go to just pull around with nowhere to the train could get there from the other side and just had to stop there is. no film they were lumbering and. 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. 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 knew 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 i know i mean when you're a film something for eight months and then you're preparing 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 one large family. why does he choose the war theme so much has already been filmed about the war. my film is not about the war that well not exactly but practically it's right now after the war that i talked about that already. ironically doesn't matter to me when a story happens and in this particular story just coincided with the period we're now through 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

human 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 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 morning a story you me to 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 to you worry is the age when we may be watching each other in some we. gonna start killing each other. this is what is interesting. so i believe it's an absolutely more than

a film. and they could. show the film captive now adds i also read that you are also going to showed a film about how are you he asked. 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 walked to their unit for twenty four hours the end 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 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 it's about enemies and the victory is and love love anyway those films must be about love otherwise and yes lou. how would you characterize the genre of your felt. 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 dram boster

drawn buster. as like any good to me. in his time a label for his film he called at home among strangers and easter. your first festival screening was in toronto didn't yield any results or offers how on earth well this film is perceived in the west but. the toronto festival is very special in general first of all because of its. buyers and distributors from all over the world together there. so i'm asking that i have been there three times with various films so why go walk or is very sentiment that after the film is shewn you get millions of 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 i do. sense the toronto audience understood the

film so will members of the cademy but he wanted them by the way speaking of all firsts i read reports that a 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 not disappoint to have signed up for a women or a green mentors if you know in 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. to ride but still all these stories are russian to a great extent except perhaps walk it's going to have a personal impression that your essence is a documentary author and 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 dental 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's ells maniac and sooner. i realized that this was mine and i was sorie haven'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 and 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 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 peter phelps certainly. 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 it then yup i go to. a prominent theatrical director. in the other one at that i will. be a single film about him and that's what i'm saying but i tried so many times to get into he's a rehearsal but he won't let me know 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 because. 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's nuclear energy technology is in demand as president of the summit in vietnam. another spy scandal on the horizon with reports claiming georgia has rounded up twenty members of a russian spy ring. and america chooses political satirist jon stewart as the most influential man of the year putting their trust in comedians rather than politicians.

bringing you the top news in headlines from around the world this is r t let's get right to your headlines right now shall we russia is expanding on well proven time as it looks for closer cooperation with southeast asian countries the region is hungry for energy and russia seems ready to deliver its already agreement to build vietnam's first atomic power plant this and other deals as president medvedev visits the summit. as the details from. this summit has been very productive like as many leaders have said like most of the asean summits a lot of work has already been done the russian president dmitry medvedev taking part in addresses and working sessions also said that russia's involvement in the asia pacific region is of a key strategic nature and he hopes that his relationship with the asia pacific region countries as a very good.