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The CINE
FANTOM was founded in November 1995 by Gleb Aleinikov, both to commemorate
the death of his brother Igor in a plane crash in 1994 and to expand the
"Parallel Cinema" movement. "Parallel Cinema," established
in 1987 by the Aleinikov brothers in Moscow, was an independent alternative
to official state filmmaking in the Soviet Union. In 1990 the Aleinikov
brothers helped to organize screenings of representative works of "Parallel
Cinema" in a number of American cities, including the Anthology Film
Archives in New York and the Washington DC Film Festival.
The main
goal of the Cine Fantom Club is to provide a venue for experiments with
new film and video techniques, and to encourage the search for new forms
and visual languages in contemporary cinema.
The Cine Fantom Club organizes screenings of Russian and foreign filmmakers,
programmes of short films that are selected from festivals, works by new
artists, video performances, retrospectives of classical and contemporary
avant-garde directors, seminars and discussions. Cine Fantom Club programmes
have been screened at the Grenz Land Filmtage (Selb, 1995), the European
Media Art Fest (Osnabruck, 1998), the Cottbus Film Festival (1995). In
January 1999, works of the Cine Fantom Club were screened at the Anthology
Film Archives in New York as part of an extensive programme of recent
Russian experimental films.
The Founders
of CINE FANTOM
Gleb Aleinikov
Born in Grozni, 1966, lives and works in Moscow. Director, producer, prize
winner at international festivals. Co-founder of the Parallel Cinema Movement.
Author of more than 20 shorts and feature length films. Among them: "Traktoristi
2", "Ameriga", "Zenboxing".
Boris
Yuhananov
Born in Moscow 1957, educated at the Voronezh Theatre Institute and GITIS,
in 1984 founder of the first independent theatre group "Taerur -
teator", founder of the Slow Video theory, in 1988 created and guided
the Individual Directorship Studio (now part of the Russian Theatre Academy),
director of the "Marat/Sade", "Faust", "Sunflowers".
Andrei
Silvestrov
Born in Moscow 1972, director, more than 15 movies featured at festivals
in Moscow, Kiev, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Madrid, London, Brussels, Saint
Petersburg.
Aleksander
Dulerain
Born in Grozni, 1966, lives and works in Moscow, completed the Individual
Directorship Studio, specialization at the New York Cinema Academy, theatre
and film producer, director of "Ivan the Idiot".
Oleg Haybulin
Born in Salavat 1966, lives and works in Moscow, TV, film and theatre
director and producer, participates in the Individual Directorship Studio
projects, leading actor in the Faust spectacle.
Daniil Lebedev
Born in Frunze, 1974, painter, designer, one of the founders of the Bluesoup
Group, prize winner at several European festivals and exhibitions of video
and new media art.
Inna Kolossova
Born in Kiev, 1968, lives and works in Moscow, educated at the Mathematics
and Cybernetics Faculty at the Moscow State University and the Individual
Directorship Studio, theatre and film director, leading actress in "Ivan
the Idiot".
Olga Stolpovskaya
Born in Moscow, 1969, theatre and film director, script-writer and actress,
in 1986 graduated the Moscow Arts College, 1997 the Individual Directorship
Studio under the guidance of Professor Boris Yuhananov, director of "Bruner's
Trial", "Subscribers" etc.
Dmitriy
Troitzki
Born in Moscow, 1971, theatre and film director, producer, 1992 graduated
the Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1997 the Individual Directorship
Studio under the guidance of Professor Boris Yuhananov, founded the Mu-seum
Group, which has over 50 performances and actions, one of the co-founders
of the CINE FANTOM Club and Good Movies Agency.
Olga Lyalina
Born in Moscow, 1971, graduated the Faculty of Journalism the Moscow State
University, critic and curator of cinema and video projects, net-artist,
professor at the Stuttgart Academy, lives and works in Germany.
Evgeniy
Yufit
Born in Leningrad in 1961. From the 1980s participates in exhibitions
in the country and abroad. In 1984 he established the independent studio
MZHALALAFILM teaming up painters, writers and directors sympathizing with
the radical cinematographic experiment. He created a number of films already
classics of the Petersburg experimental cinema. Founder of Necrorealism
movement.
Evgeniy
Kondratiev
Born in Ryabinsk, 1959, from 1996 lives and works Berlin, cinema director,
from 1984 to 1987 member of the necrorealism group Mazhalalafilm, created
more than 20 films. Since 1966 lives and works in Berlin.
PARALLEL CINEMA
Tractors
1987, 10'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
A programme work for Aleinikov Brothers, influenced by the theories about
the end of cinema. The structure of the film dissolves in the magic of
the pure, "empty" or absent film representation in which the
silhouette of a tractor digging up soil emerges.
Emma Ttzunz
1998, 15'
Dir. Oleg Haibulin
"Ema Tzuntz" is a fantastic, symbolic in postkafkanesque style
story.
A Fate
1998, 15'
Dir. Andrei Silvestrov
Outstanding example of intellectual alco-movie.
Tractoristi 2
1992, 92'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
Featuring Boris Yuhananov, Evgeniy Yufit, Larisa Borodina, Gleb Aleinikov,
Evgeniy Kondratiev, Anatoliy Kuznetzov, Alexander Dulerain
Written by Gleb Aleinikov, Renata Litvinova
The first Russian remake of the movie made in 1939 with the same title.
The comedy is based upon the absurd situations in the changing realities
in Russia at the beginning of the 1990s. The postmodern irony, using the
pathos of the communist propaganda films from the Stalin regime within
the context of the new years, "draws black moustaches" on the
"naive face" of the romantic delusions from the 1930s.
Ivan the Idiot
2001, 81'
Dir. Alexander Doulerain and Sergei Koryagin
Featuring Inna Kolosova, Sergei Koryagin, Boris Yuhananov, Gleb Aleinikov,
Olga Stolpovskaya.
Young Ivan returns to his native city of "Beyondwill" and on
the way nearly runs over a girl with his car. While to help the girl,
who suffers from amnesia, he finds out that she has run away from the
clinic of mad medical genius Dr. Strauss. Co-directors and collaborators
Doulerain and Koryagin have teamed up to create the first film in a groundbreaking
new genre, the Russian Cybercomic. "Ivan the Idiot" is a future
cult classic, which provides a window on to the best of traditional Russian
film and performance art as showcased through a new generation of independent
filmmakers, actors, and artists.
Ameriga
1990-1997, 55'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
The last film by Gleb and Igor Aleinikov as co-directors before Igor's
death. The story of two secret agents performing very important missions
in distant cities and countries. In the course of the plot it becomes
clear that one of the agents is an ambassador of another civilization.
A Mean
Male Disease
1987, 10'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
One of Aleinikov Brothers' darkest works. A dead man walking through the
emptiness meets a homosexual rapist. A paradoxical mixture of fiction
scenes and newsreels keeping the viewer away from unbearable emotions
by the means of unceasing irony.
Somebody's
Been Here
1989, 42'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
The foot is stuck on the asphalt, the track is congealed and the infinite
Cosmos already knows that somebody's been here.
The Members
of the ChàPaev Society Are Speaking
1987, 10'
Dir. Igor Aleinikov, Gleb Aleinikov
The most international movie of the Parallel Cinema created at the time
of the crisis of the empire logic.
Four Objects
1998, 10'
Dir. Alexander Dulerain, Ian Rauh.
Four philosophical short stories.
A Desire
to Watch a Fassbinder Movie
1998, 22'
Special Prize at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, 1999
Alexander Dulerain, Sergei Koriagin
Postmodern reflection on Fasbinder's movies.
Sitting
in the Cupboard
2001, 23'
Dir. Tania Detkina
Special Jury Prize at Oberhausen 2001
Two youngsters hidden in a cupboard have to watch for an hour their parents'
"other" life and naturally they feel sorry for it later.
Tanya Detkina is a director and writer. She has graduated from the Moscow
Architectural Institute. She is one of the founders of Cloudy Commission
(a group of media artists) and of Moscow WWW Art Center. She has graduated
from Higher Script-Writing and Directing Courses (Alexey German's master
class). Her first film practice was in 2000 during the production of German's
film "It Is Hard to Be a God".
Filmhappy
2001, 19'
Dir. Grigoriy Dikkert, Lena Kabankova
Leading the viewer through a labyrinth of sensational discoveries about
the secrets of psycho-programming and human behaviour management the authors
reveal the single aim of this journey: to be happy.
Native
Speech
2001, 10'
Dir. Olga Stolpovskaia
Lingvistic meta-action movie.
Subscribers
2000, 11'
Dir. Olga Stolpovskaya
They wanted to fly away, but they did not, all of them are subscribers.
The film is a deconstruction of the dream about a FLIGHT. Deconstruction
is heroes' style of life. They come to an airport called "Terminal"
but they do not fly and do not go anywhere. The dream has to remain a
dream.
Bruner's
Trial
1998, 11'
Dir. Olga Stolpovskaya, Dmitriy Troitskiy
Artist against Art Mafia. The story of an artist drawing a green dollar
sign on Malevich's painting. The fiction is based on the real artistic
action by Alexander Brenner, a well-known Russian radical artist who traced
a dollar sign on Malevich's 'White Cross' in 1997 at Stedelijk Museum
in Amsterdam. Extracts from Alexander Brenner's trial transcript were
used in the film.
The Better
Porno than Never Programme (three films)
The men and women's sexual "concerns" through documentary pictures
and "non-documentary" conversations.
All Girls Are Stupid Bitches
2001, 20'
Dir. Andrei Silvestrov, Pavel Labazov
All Men Are Fuckin' Pigs;
2001, 15'
Dir. Nadezhda Bakuradze
Liana Online
2001, 21'
Dir. Vladimir Dudchenko
An Ode
2002, 34'
Dir. Victor Alimpiev, Marian Zhunin
Featuring Yossif Bakstein this film was awarded the Special Prize at the
STIK Moscow Film Festival. Everything is white and everything is beautiful.
That is the way it should be.
Shaitan
2002, 17'
Dir. Andrei Silvestrov
A mystic-liquor thriller about the sexual paranormal phenomena revealing
in days of strenuous religious activity.
Simple Stories;
1998, 50'
Dir. Vladimir Levashov, Andrei Silvestrov
Every single frame of the movie represents a point of view of the representatives
of Moscow art-society - Andrei Monastirskiy, Yuriy Leiderman, German Vinogradov,
Anton Smirnskiy, Gleb Aleinikov etc.
A Programme of the BlueSoup Group (Moscow)
1996-200, 30'
An artistic association of artists and designers, creating primarily minimalistic
animated films, the inevitable archetypal influence of which is based
on symbolic associative connections. One of the group founders is Daniil
Lebedev.
Contrary
to any logic, morphology or simply phonetics, the term
NECROREALISM
has nothing
in common with "necromania" or even less with "necrophilia".
It has been accepted that this term marks a cultural tradition (or an
aesthetic practice) that has arisen in Leningrad (St Petersburg) in the
early 1980s.
Evgeniy Yufit is the founder and undisputed leader of Necrorealism. The
first works of art created in accordance with the necrorealistic practices
were not the filming of morgue workers burying people, or acts of corpse
dismembering but the spontaneous (initially) performances of a group of
young artists, incessant comic fake fights, homicides, pursuits with barking
dogs at deserted construction sites, in railway carriages and even in
inhabited yards and entrances.
The first necrorealists' unconscious artistic gestures soon became a conscious
artistic practice. Yufit's amateur footage established the beginning of
the parallel cinema tradition. The term "necrorealism" was whispered
and approved forever as a new aesthetic trend. The first "necrorealistic"
paintings appeared, several dramatized "necro-performances"
took place on the stage of Sergei Kouryahin's "Pop-mechanics".
In the early 1990s Vladimir Koustov developed the principles of "necro-statics"
and "necro-dynamics" and became the first serious critic of
necrorealism.
A quite natural question has to be answered: why necrorealism? To what
extent is this group of artists' self-naming justified? Viktor Mazin,
a critic from St. Petersburg gives the following answer: "The object
of aesthetic description of necro-practices turn out to be the conditions
in which man exists being compulsorily at the edge of death and demonstrating
compulsorily the pathology of the mixed acts."
Necrorealists' artistic consideration is concentrated on pathological
behaviour of man who is already doomed. Nevertheless death is more than
an objective reality, given to us in our presentiments, not in our senses
as a matter of fact.
Daddy,
Father Frost is Dead!
1991, 81'
Dir. Evgeniy Yufit
Grand-prix at the International Film Festival, Rimini 1992.
The old man who according to the Soviet tradition used to bring New Year
presents becomes a phantom, and his presents bring death. A biologist
wants to experiment and settles in a village inhabited by old men and
women. Each one of the villagers is absorbed by manic mystic ideas and
is trying to find new converts by means of deforming their minds engaging
in sadomasochistic acts.
A Programme
of Three "Necrorealistic" Films
Lumberjacks
1984, 15'
Dir. Evgeniy Yufit
Hospital Attendants from Beyond
1984, 16'
Dir. Evgeniy Yufit
Dreams
1985, 16'
Dir. Evgeniy Êondratiev
MOSCOW RADICAL CINEMA movement is associated primarily with the
films of Supernova Film Association founded on 8th March 1995. That was
just several months before the establishment of the Danish Dogma 95 (which
it has been often compared to). Thus Supernova anticipated it aesthetically,
ideologically and formally by overstepping all cinematic framework of
the allowed and unallowed. Supernova Association has been founded by Oleg
Mavromatti who, apart from directing films, is also an action artist.
He is an important figure for Moscow radical art, the principles and ideology
of which are implanted in the films created within the framework of the
association. Mavromatti has created the unique "controlled improvisation"
principle. Most of the Supernova films are directed in accordance with
it. He has been also applying specific principles of filming which create
a feeling of documentary approach. The style of film language uses techniques
borrowed from the "trash" and "horror" films refracted
through the prism of the Russian visual culture.
Moscow Radicalism is an art and literature movement from the 1990s reacting
rapidly to the socio-political changes in Russia during that period. Its
members' most frequent artistic devises are artistic actions and performances.
Among its representatives are Oleg Koulik, Anatoliy Osmolovski, Alexander
Brener, Oleg Mavromatti, Dimitriy Pimenov, Alyona Martinova, Emperor Vava,
the groups ETI and "Neceziudik".
The most emblematic manifestation of the movement is Anatoliy Osmolovki's
"FUCK" action in which the participants lie down on the Red
Square in Moscow writing out with their bodies the word "huy"
(fuck). Internationally renowned also are Oleg Kulik's "Man-Dog",
Alexander Brener's action in which he draws a US dollar sign on Malevich's
painting "A White Cross on White Background" (the film "Bruner's
Trial" is dedicated to that), Oleg Mavromatti's "Do Not Believe
Your Eyes" action and others. RADEK magazine, an organ of Moscow
radical art, was published from 1997 to 2000.
The Green Elephant Calf
1999, 95'
Dir. Svetlana Baskova
First Prize at Deboshirfilm Festival, St. Petersburg 2002; First Prize
at the STIK Moscow Film Festival 2002; Second Prize at Helsinki Film Festival
2001; First Prize at the Distributors Film Festival, Paris 1999.
Featuring Vladimir Epifantsev, Sergei Pahomov, Alexander Maslaev, Anatoliy
Osmolovski
All the joys of death in the dirtiest film of the millennium. It is about
that "how awful it is to live in a cage, how awful it is to eat the
nasty food, and the green elephant calf feels worse than anybody else".
Closeness and claustrophobia, a blind love within the woe of the isolation
cell deaf walls (an endless source of eternal pleasures), an appeal from
the marginal constellations, a recipe for heroism and escape from reality...
SVETLANA
BASKOVA is a film director and artist from Moscow. She works in the
field of performance and painting. Her first film was "Kokki, the
Running Doctor" (1998). She is a member of Supernova Film Association.
Her ideas have been influenced by the situationism and the radical feminism.
The protagonists of her films are mainly male characters degenerating
in the course of the story to reach finally a state of brain absence in
which their actions are dependent on elementary muscular contractions.
The Rats are Leaving the Shop
2001, 51'
Dir. Oleg Mavromatti
Featuring Yavor Kostov and his camcorder
This is a film about the last minutes in the life of a New York immigrant
artist in September 2001. It was shot following the controlled improvisation
principle with a movie camera recording the artist's actions in a 50 minute
take without cuts, a serious challenge for the senses - even of a trained
audience.
OLEG MAVROMATTI
is a film director and action artist from Moscow. He is an outstanding
representative of the Moscow radical art, a founder of the Supernova Film
Association (1995). He is an author of seven feature length films and
numerous shorts created following the controlled improvisation principle.
He is also the founder of the Absolute Love Sect artistic action group
(1995-1999). The aim of the group was to overcome the postmodern situation
devouring it by the "situation of the absolute love". Mavromatti
was a member of the Netseziudik group together with A. Brener, A. Osmolovski,
D. Piemnov (1993-1995), a member of the ETI group (Expropriation on the
Territory of Art) (1989) together with A.Osmolovski, D. Piemnov, A. Obouhova,
Grigoriy Goussarov. One of the founders of STIK Moscow Film Festival .
He has been living and working in Sofia for three years now, where he
has created the films "The Greatest Meatball in the World".
A Programme of the ZAIBI (For Anonimous and Free-of-charge Art), Moscow
1998-2001, 30'
This is a group of artists who intentionally hide their names. Even with
the abbreviation which marks them (ZAIBI - "Fuck!") they declare
their non-conformistic ideas accomplished in videos that erase the boundaries
between art and the boring life of "everyday" people. It is
one of the oldest artistic groups from the 1990s sprung up in 1989 as
a part of Moscow radicalism (out of the ETI group - Expropriation on the
Territory of Art).
Bee Hives
2001, 85'
A movie of the Moscow punk-group NOM
A mean and very funny parody of the horror movies taking place in a farm
for killer-bees. NOM is a cult punk group working in various art fields
and involving the audience in an endless psychedelic carnival. Bringing
their prey to "the edge of normal perceptions" NOM reveal the
schizophrenic perspectives awaiting his/her conscience "beyond the
edge"…
From Siberia
with Love
2002-2003, 60'
Films created in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Ekaterininbourg (2002-2003) have
been gathered under this title. They have been produced by artists and
film directors who represent in a highly ironic tone visual and ethnographic
cliches about Siberia and Russia thus to a great extent being a reflection
of Moscow radicalism. Some of the films are designed formally as separate
forms of video art, documenting artistic actions and performances others
are film parodies of the modern Russian commercial mainstream.
Having found a unique and ingenious method of escaping from the cultural
and geographical isolation, the artists from Novosibirsk are nowadays
real pop figures of modern art and they have been gaining a remarkable
international recognition. The most outstanding representatives are Vyacheslav
Mizin, Alexander Shabourov, Dimitriy Boulnigin (director of the annual
Extra Short Film Festival /ESF/ in Novosibirsk), Konstantin Skotnikov.
VYACHESLAV
MIZIN Born in 1962 in Novosibirsk where he lives and works. Graduated
from the Novosibirsk Construction Institute. A former architect "on
paper" and a neo-expressionist painter. Having undergone a lung operation
(1993) he concentrates on human and animal bodies and their parts using
this material in his works. He promotes stylistically fatuous and degenerative
art practices and ideas (the so called "art-debilki"). He is
often drunk and impudent.
ALEXANDER
SHABOUROV Born in 1965 in Beryozovsk, Sverdlovsk Region. From 1986
to 1990 worked as a photographer in the regional forensic morgue and as
a restorer at an ethno-historic museum. Currently lives and works in Moscow.
He is an artist, actor, script-writer and writer. He became famous with
his projects Dental Treatment and Denture for which he has received financial
support by the George Soros Foundation to cure his teeth, The Russian
Buddha, My Beauty Will Save the World. He is an outstanding representative
of the Novosibirsk radical art-joking. He works in the field of the intellectual
mini-sketch.
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