“The stewardess said, “of Course, I have already forgiven these guys””
An interview with Rezo Gigineishvili, Director of “the Hostage” — movie about the capture of aircraft in Soviet Georgia.
In Russia rolled out on 21 September “Hostages” Rezo Gigineishvili is one of the brightest and most resonant films of 2017. Abruptly, conceptual and radical filmmaker tells the true story of an attempted hijacking by six young people in Soviet Georgia in 1983. the Russian-Georgian film participated in the Berlin festival, was later noted for directing not festivals “Kinotavr” and “on the Edge”. Film critic of “Medusa” Anton Dolin asked Rezo Gigineishvili about how he went from “Heat” to “Hostages.”
— “Hostages” shocked many because Rezo Gigineishvili always for them was the author of the commercially successful and sustained, in General, in the same genre frivolous paintings. How come that you took solely a movie like “Heat” and “Love with accent”?
— I had this issue went back to his biography and recalled a difficult period when I came to Moscow, after all the Georgian war. Basically, our family was quite privileged Soviet family, but we were in the refugee status here. Remember the Georgia of the early 1990s, as they burned tires, as they were the people for bread in the queue, and the bread did not exist, and hid as gasoline… Absolute collapse, bands, darkness; life has changed. In Moscow my mother and I went through many difficult moments, searched the apartment, and the apartment Caucasians did not give up. We didn’t have Moscow registration, complete chaos. Later I started to run in these frivolous Sunny pictures on Moscow — like “Heat,” to go in the direction of the tale. It was a moment of escape from reality, the ban on reality instead of reflection.
But I still had to work on the TV — any work we have seen as salvation, and in VGIK we studied, probably only the history of cinema. No practice at all. And you need to understand how valuable was the opportunity to touch the camera. There is a huge amount of media that you can make a movie, up to the iPhone. And then extracted some kind of camera… And for us it was salvation to remove these wonderful ladies, who sat on the sofas, were they flying hair from wind turbines, and we rode on the wagon here and there, shooting a music video.
I am in no way making excuses, I love your way. So now I could speak with the audience on the topics that are interesting to me, needed a certain skill, practice… Without modesty I can say: I like it when I hit the floor. I know the cinematic alphabet, you know now the price of each frame.
— The paradox turns out: the adult who made several paintings in the middle of a creative way suddenly makes a film — and all it seems that now he truly made her film debut. Despite the fact that for him a biography and career, and the career successful.
— We’re reading our favorite book Bergman, “Laterna magic”. I didn’t expect that so many of the films he made before he became familiar to us Bergman. But I’m a healthy person, with a great classic can not compare! Is something different. I respect the path, such as Andrei Zvyagintsev, who managed to start immediately. But he began to make paintings in 38 years. Also happy for my colleague and friend already, we can say, Cantemir Balagova, which is an entirely different path: he made his debut at 25. But he has other difficulties he experiences, thinks, analyzes, what now?..
I know one thing. As soon as we begin to think, how to please, immediately remove the bad. No one is immune from failure. But, I think, my personal taste is that “Hostage” gave me a lot, not as Director but as a person. It is the ability not only to get involved in the profession from a technical point of view, but to find the courage to set goals and with each step, moving towards the goal, not to be afraid. Never to waver. And don’t be afraid of what you are interested in things will not attract the attention of the audience. Work — because I can’t not work. Want to talk and even shout that you really care. And it’s important.
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— You now sound like the DoppelgangeR of his characters in the movie “Hostage”. People do what they can not do, even knowing the risks, the danger, the ability to screw it up. Despite this, there continue to move. So you took a very personal, almost autobiographical film.
My favorite Director Francis Ford Coppola. We know a lot of movies about the mafia and about the life of the mafia, but his paintings are unusual: they are not just about gangsters, they are about family. And this valuable.
— When my hero runs the last time out of the house, saying goodbye, and it is not possible to tell people the truth about where and why he went there, where there’s no return… of Course, it is my relationship with my mom. I sometimes feel like I’m a stranger here, Georgians, and in Georgia, I’m Russian. This inability to find himself… that doesn’t mean I don’t like to live here or in Georgia. But I’m limited even in their statements and evaluations. Here and there it seems to me that say, “don’t like it, get out.”