For Angels of Revolution, director Fedorchenko (Silent Souls, 2011) has taken his inspiration from the Kazym rebellion of 1933, when the Khanty people of western Siberia rose against forced Soviet collectivisation, which meant the end of their traditional way of life and spiritual customs. Fedorchenko uses this brutal incident to reflect on the inevitable collision of two completely opposite ideologies, but above all to reconstruct the Russian avant-garde and political agitprop art of the time using wonderful, stylised images. Modernism and tradition (or city and taiga) simply do not mix, and Fedorchenko illustrates this using a mannered acting style inspired by the teachings of theatre director Meyerhold, a constructivist animated film, and references to Eisenstein and Malevich. For the Khanty, culture means shooting at sacks of water and worshipping cats, not listening to the electronic theremin or looking at supremacist paintings.
Film details
Country of production
Russia
Year
2014
Festival edition
IFFR 2015
Length
113'
Medium/Format
DCP
Language
Russian
Premiere status
None
Director
Alexey Fedorchenko
Producer
Dmitry Vorobiev, Alexey Fedorchenko, Leonid Lebedev
Screenplay
Alexey Fedorchenko, Denis Osokin, Oleg Loevskiy
Cinematography
Shandor Berkeshi
Production design
Alexey Fedorchenko, Artem Khabibulin
Production company
29 February Film Company, Krasnaya Strela Film Company