KinoKlub December - Boris Godunov
8pm, 13 December - presented by director Vladimir Mirzoev
8pm, 20 December - catch up screening
December's KinoKlub showed the UK premiere of Vladimir Mirzoev's new adaptation of Boris Godunov, presented by the director!
Vladimir Mirzoev’s contentious modern adaptation of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov has sent ripples through the Russian cinema world. Sticking to the original text, the director has moved the setting of the tragedy to Moscow 2011, complete with Moscow-City, expensive cars, mobile phones, laptops and the presidential elections looming round the corner. Pushkin’s subject of the bloody nature of Russian rule and the Russian people has acquired even greater relevance now, on the eve of the upcoming election of “successor to the throne”. A brilliant, but tragic satire on both today’s Russia and the archetypal Russia which existed long before Putin and even Pushkin himself.
Mirzoev's contemporary adaption of Pushkin’s tragedy features Maxim Sukhanov as the title role, the star of this year’s Russian Film Festival closing night film, Target. Sukhanov's previous work with director Vladimir Mirzoev won him a Nika last year for his role in The Man who Knew Everything.
Drama, Russia, 2011, 128 mins
Directed by Vladimir Mirzoev
Screenplay by Vladimir Mirzoev (based on the play by Alexander Pushkin)
Produced by Natalia Egorova and Vladimir Mirzoev
Cinematography by Pavel Kostomarov
Cast includes: Maxim Sukhanov, Mikhail Kozakov, Andrei Merzlikin and Leonid Gromov.
Vladimir Mirzoev
Vladimir Mirzoev is an accomplished theatre director, writer, and director of cinema. Graduating from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in 1981, he worked for various theatre companies in Russia before establishing his own theatre company in Canada in 1990. Additionally he has successfully staged the operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Mariinsky Theatre before starting his career as a film director in 2006. Mirzoev also lectures and gives master classes at various universities throughout the North American continent.
Mirzoev has said of his contemporary adaption that it “clearly shows the sad pattern of Russian history”. The characters of Boris Godunov are transported to modern day Moscow as the themes that Pushkin wrote of are still present for the modern day Russian.
