CZECH REPUBLIC: 'A PLACE ON EARTH' WINS THE PHILIP MORRIS AWARD AT THE 36TH KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 392180

  • Title: CZECH REPUBLIC: 'A PLACE ON EARTH' WINS THE PHILIP MORRIS AWARD AT THE 36TH KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 13th July 2001
  • Summary: KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC, (JULY 11TH 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE) FILM DIRECTOR ARTUR ARISTAKISIAN SAYING (Russian) "They (the government) gave me very little money to do this film and the money was channelled through the producer. When he saw the pictures, which were very unusual, they don't create images like this in Russia, then he wanted to do it all b
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: Communications
  • Reuters ID: LVAFLKPVUFBWISN6VV4ZSZROD7G
  • Story Text: A Place on Earth, a new film by Russian director, Artur Aristakisian, has won the Philip Morris award at the recent 36th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film depicts the life of a community living in a Moscow squat and offers a compelling picture of the life of the city's disinherited. Despite its raw documentary technique the film has a poetry and pathos that resonates beyond the frame.
    We've all heard stories about great actors going to extreme lengths to research their characters. Devotees of the Actors studio in New York such as Marlon Brando and James Dean brought the results of Moscow Arts Theatre co-founder, Konstantin Stanislavski's famed "method" to the Hollywood screen.
    Stanislavski's technique was born out of a desire to represent reality on the stage, but for Russian film director, Artur Aristakisian, it was a different story. His method resulted from financial restraints, but the result is a cinematic reality that sees him being hailed as one of Europe's most creative young directors.
    With a tiny budget of 30,000 US dollars, Aristakisian decided to go and live what he wanted to film. He spent two years, 1995 and '96, with a hippie community that practised free love and lived in a derelict house near Moscow's city centre.
    Aristakisian documented their daily life, ideological reversals, moral and spiritual dilemmas as well as their final disillusionment and break-up.
    The community, which was formed for the sake of the film, comprised of men, women, children, beggars, cripples and animals. The film shows how their fanatical faith in the attainment of freedom through free love becomes unbearable for some of its members, including its spiritual leader.
    Each week the community would discuss what events were worth giving over to the film. Scenes would then be fantastically reconstructed for the camera. The result is, "A Place on Earth", a 126 minute long feature film which depicts the shattering break-up of the community's decline in all its stark, harsh reality. At the same time, the events resonate a poetry and pathos which go way beyond the film.
    Aristakisian is no stranger to the film's subject matter. His Moscow Film School, graduation documentary about beggars, "Palms", (1993) identified strongly with the psychology and world of its protagonists living on society's fringe.
    Aristakisian's exceptional debut was recognised with awards at film festivals in Berlin, San Francisco, Karlovy Vary, Copenhagen, and Munich. In Russia the film received a Nika for Best Documentary.
    Speaking at the 36th International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, Aristakisian, with his long flowing hair, looks like he's just left the hippie commune depicted in, "A Place On Earth". In reality the last five years have seen him go through not only the process of completing his film but also of rescuing it.
    "They (the government) gave me very little money to do this film and the money was channelled through the producer. When he saw the pictures, which were very unusual, they don't create images like this in Russia, then he wanted to do it all by himself. He wanted to edit without me and he fooled me into signing paper which gave him all the rights. He started editing without me and he just cut the film down to bits and pieces, he literally cut the movie down to half. I almost committed suicide, but then Riesa got some people together to defend me and they succeeded and he left me in peace," says Aristakisian.
    Aristakisian is indebted to Riesa Fomina, a Moscow-based film's distributor. She fought continuously to retrieve, A Place on Earth and after a long retracted battle she sent the film to the Cannes Film Festival where it received international attention and much critical acclaim.
    "I made a cassette and sent it to Cannes and then I sent one to Eva Zaoralova who is artistic director of Karlovy Vary then the film was shown to a Moscow competition and everyone said its a masterpiece ...though very many people say its a very difficult film. You have to be kind of courageous to see it to the end."
    Fomina was not the only person who came to the film's rescue.
    Robert Wyatt, ex-drummer of British rock band, "Soft Machine"
    gave Aristakisian permission to use music from his Rock Bottom album on the film's soundtrack. Aristakisian had sent him a letter telling him about the film and its financial predicament. When a London-based friend of Aristakisian showed Wyatt, "Palms" he wrote back and said he could use the music free of charge.
    As "A Place on Earth" continues on the festival circuit it is gaining more attention and more awards, the most recent being the Philip Morris Freedom Award at the Karlovy Vary 36th International Film Festival. This prestigious annual award is selected from the festival's "East of the West" category and presented by the American Cinema Foundation to a first, second or third-time filmmaker from Eastern Europe or a post-communist bloc country.
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