Andrei Zagdansky: My film is about my father, those times, the pain of separation… and love

“I’m sitting at the window. There’s an
                                  aspen outside.
I have loved few, but deeply.”

                               Joseph Brodsky

PREFACE

Andrei Zagdansky was born in Kyiv. He graduated with honors from the film directing department of the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv Theater Institute. After completing his military service he began working at Kyivnauchfilm studio. He first made commercials and educational films for foreigners. In 1988, when the winds of change began to blow, with his colleagues he created the independent creative union Chetver. There he shot his first film Interpretation of Dreams, which won the grand-prize at the USSR documentary film festival in Voronezh in 1990. The film was presented at many international film forums, including Amsterdam, London, New York, Krakow, St. Petersburg, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Madrid. Next came the films Two, Check-in, Oleh Blokhin. Farewell. The director says that, even though they may not have won prizes, those films freed him forever.

In 1992 after the USSR collapsed and there were no possibilities for film making, Zagdansky immigrated to the US, where he soon got a residence permit as a “gifted foreigner.” This is how his American life started: working in television, Rockefeller’s grant and teaching at the New School University. Four years later he founded his own independent company AZ Films.

He directed the short film Six Days about New York after the September 11 attacks. Then he shot the full-length film Vasya about the Russian painter Vasily Sitnikov, who was officially pronounced insane by Soviet doctors. The film combined documentary and animation, and won the prize of the New York Expo in 2002 and the diploma of the film festival Window to Europe held in Vyborg in 2003. Next came the documentary Konstantin and Mouse about the Russian avant-garde poet, publisher of the nine-volume anthology of the Russian poetry Konstantin Kuzminsky and his wife Emma. Just like the main character of the film Vasya Kuzminsky enjoyed absolute freedom, bordering madness (the film received a diploma at the human rights film festival Stalker in Moscow).

The film Orange Winter stands out among the rest of Zagdansky’s oeuvre, and describes the events in Kyiv surrounding the Orange Revolution. The director was not in the Maidan during those frosty days, which is probably why his work isn’t a chronicle of the revolution, but rather a desperate attempt of an intelligent, delicate and thinking man to review those events, to speak about his native country, its inhabitants and the world’s destiny. Orange Winter participated in the International Documentary Film Festival Contact in Kyiv. However, neither the jury, nor the “revolutionaries” took note of the film.

Finally, in 2010 the film director finished his most personal film My Father Evgeni.

HIS LIFE AND DESTINY

I would like to discuss this in detail, since this material is connected with the film My Father Evgeni.

…I remember the warm day of September when Evgeni Zagdansky, the talented script writer and brilliant manager, was buried. He was an intelligent, wise and very good person. It was on September 10, 1997. I was told about this tragedy The Day before, on my birthday… A lot of people came to Baikove cemetery: his family, colleagues and friends. His son Andrei wasn’t there. He couldn’t come from the US. He didn’t have time to get the visa. He got to his father’s grave only in 2001…

Then I heard from him for the first time that he wanted to make a film, based on his five-year correspondence with his father, after Andrei went to the US. But he wasn’t psychologically ready for this.

Finally, The Day came after two and a half years of the painful work (I saw it myself): the poignant documentary drama My Father Evgeni was released. It was very important for Zagdansky that the film premiere took place in Kyiv. The film told not only about the relation between father and son, but also about the inevitable generation gap, the pain of separation, the terrible and amazing events of the 20th century, the people around the Zagdansky family, who read banned books and discussed good and bad films; about Kyiv where he became the man he is today, and about love.

The film My Father Evgeni was selected to the competitive program “Mirror” of the Second Kyiv International Film Festival, and was awarded a diploma “For the dramatic interpretation of the country’s history through the destiny of the cinematographers’ family.”

…Evgeni Zagdansky was well known in the cinematographic and literary environment of the former Soviet Union. The war veteran finished the war in Berlin, and spent several years with his wife and daughter Nina there, before coming back to Kyiv at the beginning of the 1950s. The Soviet party offered him a job as an administrator at the conservatory or the film studio at his choice. Evgeni chose Kyivnauchfilm, where he worked as a script writer for 20 years, in addition to working as editor-in-chief at the renowned studio.

His son Andrei grew up in the film studio atmosphere: he fell in love with his father’s funny, intelligent and talented friends, listened to the adults’ discussions about Sartre and Parajanov, telepathy and telekinesis, Wolf Messing and parapsychology, the trials of Sinyavsky and Daniel, the Babyn Yar anniversary and the State Security Committee. His father wanted him to become a scientist, but he chose the profession of the film director, and shot a film about those times.

Evgeni Zagdansky is in a shot. The author’s voice is off screen: “This is my father in 1995. He is 76.” A unique shot of a ravaged Kyiv in 1944: “He’s 25...” In an hour we cover that crazy, crazy 20th century. The director doesn’t comment on the events or the facts of their family life, he just shoots them: “My sister told me that our mom was Jewish. It became the main secret of my school times.”

The choice of the historical plots of the film isn’t random. Those issues worried the Zagdansky family, all the Kyivan intellectuals grieved about them. Add to them the unique chronicle and the modern and eternal City (from the very beginning I feel the desire to honor Bulgakov) filmed with love by the cameraman Vladimir Guevsky. After being edited by the talented director, these scenes could have been the basis for a remarkable documentary. However, they would never have acquired such depth, and would not have become the reserved declaration of a man to his father, to his son and his country, without the fragments of letters from Evgeni to Andrei: “I was very upset by your views. I was afraid that because of your views you’ll be unable to work in the film industry. At least in our country. I hoped that when you become older you’ll find a certain balance. I worry about you…” (The letters of Evgeni Zagdansky were brilliantly read by the famous Russian dramatist Aleksandr Gelman. — Author).

The short phrases are like pickets hammered by an alpinist determined to reach the peak. First of all this is important for the writer: “My heart is aching… All these days I’ve been thinking about our shame in Chechnya. Children are being killed; they haven’t seen life yet. The tragedy of this country is a stupid and criminal government. For so many centuries. My heart is aching…”

My Father Evgeni is a high quality feature movie. It is justly called art. “We believed that the high intellectual level provided for perfect morality. Are you tired of reading all of this? I’m just persuading myself that I haven’t lived my life in vain…”

The confession of Kyiv-born Andrei Zagdansky makes people think, laugh and cry. Isn’t it his goal?

THE INTERVIEW AFTER THE PREMIER

Andrei, many Kyivan cinematographers saw the film My Father Evgeni as a story about the unique film studio Kyivnauchfilm, where your father worked for many years and where you established yourself as a film director. If it is so, then who influenced you as a film director while working there?

“First of all, there undoubtedly was Felix Sobolev (Seven Steps over the Horizon, Animals’ Language, I and Others. – Author), Anatolii Borsiuk (A Scratch on the Ice, Vavylov’s Star, Nika Who…) and Viktor Olender (My Mom Doesn’t Love Me, Searching for the Aliens, Nine Years with the Psychics). What was their influence on me? I’ve been thinking about it. Actually, none. Except for the presence of those people at the film studio and in my life. Talent is so infectious!

“Moreover, I believe in professional development through contact with experienced colleagues. Conversation with the Master, as they used to say, is very important.”

You planned your film My Father Evgeni after living in the US for many years. Did homesickness play a role in making your decision?

“No. I recall the Soviet times with horror. However, it’s a part of my life, I’ve established myself and people know and perceive me the way I am because I was born and grew up in that country. I cannot tear away my past, which made me hate some events and love others.

“When I worked on the film it was important for me, for example, to find the last speech of Academician Sakharov, when he was turned out of the platform, to whistles and hoots, during a USSR Supreme Soviet meeting. There were many reasons for this.

“First of all, I remember that day very well. I was at home and I was watching television (the direct transmission of the meeting): I had tears of anger and pain in my eyes. The situation was horrible not because of Gorbachev’s behavior, as he coldly and indifferently threw Sakharov out, but because of the joy of the crowd that applauded the general secretary at that moment. I was very impressed by those events and called my son Alexey, who was about seven (he played in the next room) and told him: ‘Sit next to me, watch this program and remember this day!’ He watched and continued his important child’s occupations. Certainly, he remembers everything and he was very surprised when I got this chronicle.

“Secondly, Sakharov passed away two or three months later. Everything that happened stuck in my memory as a point of absolute despair. I realized that there was nothing to expect in this country.” (In the film after the chronicle of Sakharov’s speech Zagdansky says: “I was 36 when I left Kyiv. It seemed to me then that I left forever…” — Author.)

There are only fragments of a private chronicle in your film. However, the audience feels as if it was present in your house...

“If you remember there’s an old clock in the film which appears three times: it was very important for me to put it into the film. My parents brought the clock from Germany and it was always in our house, it was a part of my life since I was born. From a director’s point of view everything is very simple: the clock, ticking, the rhythm, the flow of time… But it is so real, its presence in the film gives me a feeling… There’s an expression in English: ‘comfort food’ (food for kids to make them feel good: broth, meat balls, mashed potato, cocoa). So this clock is a ‘comfort sound’ for me. When I hear its ticking, I feel peaceful and warm. That is why the clock in the film is absolutely authentic. This is a sound from my life, from my father’s life, our family’s life, and I lived a long time hearing it.

“Besides, all the fragments of other films, introduced into the movie, aren’t random. For example, there is a fragment from Volodymyr Saveliev’s brilliant film Na-ta-li!. The film director asks Natalia Kuchinskaya, an extremely popular gymnast at that time: ‘Are you happy?’ And she, who has been cheered on by the whole world, replies: ‘Not now.’ ‘Have you ever been happy?’ ‘I don’t know. It seems to me that happiness never lasts long, it’s just a moment… if you ask me now, now I’m not happy…’ You and I understand the meaning of these words, but our children, thank God, will be surprised. However, then her reply seemed a revolutionary concept for the Soviet people! We were supposed to wake up feeling happy and fall asleep feeling happy. Or, even better, feel happy when sleeping, too (laughing)! But we didn’t! I remember when I was little (in the 4th or 5th grade), I was told that the Americans had invented nuclear bombs and wanted to drop them on us. Then I thought: ‘I’m so happy to live in the Soviet Union, where there are no such bad people!’ Who didn’t think about it?! Kuchinskaya, the beautiful, charming, young girl, admired and cheered on by the whole world, and she says that she’s unhappy! I still think that this expression was a ‘bomb’ at that time! The people made such little steps from slavery to freedom.”

What do you think your father would say about your work?

“Your question is relevant. I don’t know (thinking). I hope he would have accepted the film, since it is about the truth of our relationship, about him and me. About that time. It’s also true that the last years, when my father was very old, everything collapsed: the film studio where he worked, the country he had fought for and where he lived. His own son left Kyiv and became artificially separated from him. His reflections and worries became an important part of the last years of his life. I believe that my father’s letters, whose small fragments I used, honestly reflect our relationship.”

AFTERWORD

The film My Father Evgeni has already participated in several international film festivals. It was presented at IDFA film review in Amsterdam, in the prestigious “Masters” program. At the Russian documentary film festival ARTDOCFEST-2010 Zagdansky was awarded the national prize for documentary films and a television “laurel branch” for the best documentary film.

The film My Father Evgeni is a joint US-Ukrainian production. Zagdansky’s Ukrainian colleagues nominated the film for the Ivan Mykolaichuk Art prize “Kyiv” for cinematography. The founders of the prize are the Kyiv municipality and the Coordination Council of the national Ukrainian Creative Unions. The jury comprised competent specialists: the head of the Cinematographers’ Union, the film critic Serhii Trymbach, the script writer Liudmyla Lemiesheva, singer Marichka Mykolaichuk, actress Larysa Kadochnykova and various young cinematographers. The founders rejected the film My Father Evgeni, explaining their decision by the fact that the director lives abroad. While those seem to follow the letter of the art prize’s regulations, it raises doubts nonetheless. Even the National Shevchenko Prize is awarded “to the residents of Ukraine and other countries and stateless persons.” No need to comment.