The 'Week of Russian cinema' ended in New York: what is the festival's memory

In New York on Friday, December 13, the premiere of the film “Text” directed by Klim Shipenko took place. The film closed the Russian Cinema Week festival, organized by the ROK film studio together with the Cherry Orchard Foundation.

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“We wanted to finish the Film Week with dignity, by staging, in our estimation, the highest-rated and most popular film among viewers, and at the same time as serious and deep as “Text,” and we were not mistaken - all tickets were sold,” she said in an interview with TASS co-founder of the festival, producer Irina Shabshis. “Although, of course, the public’s interest is aroused not only by the film itself, but also by the leading actor Alexander Petrov, who is present at the screening in order to communicate with the New York public after it ends.”

Speaking to the audience, Alexander Petrov said that to date the film “Text” has been watched by a total of more than 2 million people. In his opinion, the main message of the film is the need for some changes in Russia.

“I wish it were impossible to put drugs in a person’s pocket and jail him for seven years, like a movie character,” he noted.

The actor believes that the film “Text” “can somehow help every citizen of the Russian Federation - so that he understands that he is protected and that drugs cannot be planted on him at any time just because he is unprofitable for someone - because this is how it should be "

“The number of viewers who have already watched this film indicates that the topic is important: people want to think about it, they want to pay attention to such things and watch such a movie,” Petrov emphasized. “Although the story could have happened in any country.”

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Adapted Text

One of the American film studios is producing the film “Text” based on an adapted script by writer Dmitry Glukhovsky. Alexander Petrov told the audience about this at the end of the premiere screening of the Russian version of the film of the same name in New York.

“The film “Text” by Shipenko is both about Russia and about today in general,” he believes. — And the first rights to the film adaptation of the novel, which Dmitry Glukhovsky sold, belong to the Americans. Together with Glukhovsky, they rewrote the script to suit American reality. The film is now in production in the States, it is being handled by a fairly serious film company.”

“Because of this, we lost the right to show our film in English in any country in the world, including at festivals,” explained Alexander Petrov. “If we wanted to buy these rights back, we would have to pay an amount several times higher than the film’s budget. Perhaps this would give the film an opportunity to be present on the international stage and give some awards, but maybe not. Therefore, the producers did not risk that kind of money, and they did the right thing.”

Crime-drama and psychological thriller by Klim Shipenko is a film adaptation of the best-selling novel “Text” by writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, released in 2017 and translated into more than 20 languages. Glukhovsky himself adapted the novel into a film script.

Shipenko’s film was released on October 24, 2019 and has already paid off its budget, becoming one of the highest-grossing Russian films of 2019.

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"Russian Cinema Week"

During the Russian Film Week, which took place in New York from December 6, 18 films were shown. Among them is the comedy “Let's Get Divorced!” (2019), which opened the festival, dramas “Odessa” (2018), “Bull” (2019), “Lenin” (2019), action thriller “Hero” (2019). The directors and stars of Russian cinema themselves came to present the films - Rinal Mukhametov, Alexey Serebryakov, Taisiya Vilkova, Alexey Guskov, Anna Parmas, Vladimir Khotinenko, Alexander Gorchilin.

The festival took place at three metropolitan venues - the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Lincoln Center and Symphony Space on Broadway - and will not be limited to New York. At the end of the week, together with director Sergei Livnev and actor Alexei Serebryakov, who played the main role in the film “Van Gogh” (2018), the festival goes to present the film to the residents of Boston (Massachusetts), Seattle (Washington), San Francisco (California), Chicago (Illinois) and Denver (Colorado).

The Russian Film Week festival was held in New York for the first time in 2018.

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