"The most popular genre in Russian cinema today is fairytales, the 64-year-old told the Guardian. They adapt all the stories we grew up with. There's no single social drama, no movie reflecting life during the war. The only source of financing is the state. If you want to make a movie about the war itself, the only option is propaganda."
"The film-maker's new documentary, Notes of a True Criminal, premiering in Venice on Wednesday, rejects that fantasy, opting instead for a deeply personal meditation on Ukraine's history, the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how these events have shaped his family across generations. It is his first documentary in more than 30 years and what he calls the most personal film of my life."
A Ukrainian film-maker once central to Russia's cultural life ran one of Russia's largest media conglomerates and produced acclaimed films, including the Oscar nominees Leviathan and Loveless. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian cinema has shifted toward state-funded fairytale and children's adaptations that adapt familiar stories and dominate the box office. Commercial and state financing now favors lavish adaptations like Cheburashka, which became the highest-grossing Russian film in 2023, while social dramas and realistic portrayals of wartime life have disappeared. State funding remains the only practical source for films about the war, but such projects typically become propagandistic. The film-maker self-funded a deeply personal documentary, Notes of a True Criminal, examining Ukraine's history, the Soviet collapse's fallout, and the war's human cost.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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