Intelligentsia and people. Interview with Alexander Sokurov, in which the director called for TV journalists to be tried in the Hague Court. Also in the work against the authorities. These and other topics are discussed Dmitry Kulikov And Olga Podolyan.

Podolyan : This hour we wanted to talk about reactions.

Kulikov : Yes, about reactions - adequate and inadequate. On the functions of comprehension and awareness. It seems that our intelligentsia should be doing this. But I would like to put the question in this hour: the intelligentsia and the people. But not in its abstract form, but very concretely - who, how and what understands.

To be honest, I was shocked by the interview with director Alexander Sokurov, which came out recently. There are many things, I will not analyze all this interview. In principle, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but two things from this interview should be discussed.

The first thing is that, according to Mr. Sokurov, our media, our television is kindling something there, and regarding this amazing term "kindling", Mr. Sokurov called for Russian TV journalists to be tried in The Hague. That's it, neither more nor less. This, by the way, is such a liberal democrat, as it turns out, who recently demanded. Sentsov is the head of the Ukrainian group that was preparing terrorist attacks in Crimea. He is, as it were, a director, and the fact that he is, as it were, a director, according to Sokurov (at that time he was arguing with President Putin), was sufficient reason to release Sentsov. Despite the fact that his guilt was proved in court, terrorist activities really took place there, they really prepared these attacks.

By the way, when the question arises, where do repressions come from in our society, such terrible mechanisms that we have encountered in history, and so they come from here - from the position of our liberals and democrats, who believe that they are against repressions and for freedom. They are against those repressions that they consider wrong. But they are very "for" correct repression. And all this coexists simultaneously in their head, which they consider to be nothing less than the "brain of the nation."

In principle, I don't like Russian television, - said Sokurov, - so let's send it to The Hague. By the way, this is also the pinnacle of justice - The Hague. For some reason Mr. Sokurov does not say about The Hague that the leaders of Yugoslavia, for example, simply died in the Hague prison. And their guilt has never been proven. This Mr. Sokurov does not care. Well, okay, about The Hague separately.

So, journalists who do not like Mr. Sokurov should be sent to The Hague. And the terrorist Sentsov, whom Sokurov likes, should be released and an "act of mercy" should be shown to him.

Listen in full on the audio version.

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"Nika" 2017: the film "Paradise" by Andrei Konchalovsky became the winner of the award.

The day before, the 30th anniversary ceremony of the national film award "Nika" was held at the Moscow City Council Theater. Andrey Konchalovsky's film "Paradise" won the award in three main categories: "Best Film", "Best Director" and "Best Actress".

The historical drama "Paradise" tells about people whose lives intersected during the Second World War: a Russian émigré Olga, a member of the French Resistance movement, a French collaborator Jules and a high-ranking SS officer. The action of the picture takes place mainly in a German concentration camp.

During the Nika award ceremony, laureates intkbbee awards from the stage called on the authorities to listen to the youth and spoke out in defense of people detained during Sundays and political prisoners. In particular, directors Alexander Sokurov, Alexander Mitta, Alexei Krasovsky and actress Elena Koreneva mentioned this in their speeches.

Sokurov, who received an honorary award in the "Honor and Dignity" nomination, in his speech recalled Oleg Sentsov and pointed out the mistake of the state, which acted familiarly towards young people on March 26. He also drew attention to the harsh actions of law enforcement agencies against girls and women.

"I appeal to the deputies: let's adopt a law prohibiting the arrest and generally touching women and girls participating in mass rallies. If you saw what happened on Sunday, when girls were grabbed by the arms and legs. It was rude. It was violence ", he stated.

Sokurov's speech at the Nika award ceremony. VIDEO

"The state is making a mistake by behaving so familiarly with schoolchildren and students. You cannot start a civil war among schoolchildren and students. None of our politicians wants to hear them. Nobody talks to them. They are afraid to do this - why?" - said the director.

According to Sokurov, he discussed with Vladimir Putin the issue of the release from prison of Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, who was sentenced to 22 years on charges of terrorism. According to him, the President of Russia promised to "think about this problem."

Winner of "Nika" in the "Discovery of the Year" nomination, creator of the film "Collector" Alexei Krasovsky called on the cinematographic community to influence the fate of the detained participants in the rallies.

"I want to ask you to use your power to change something in their fate," TASS quoted him as saying.

His performance was supported by the artistic director of the Lenkom Theater Mark Zakharov.

“I am happy that Krasovsky spoke about some of our painful and difficult problems in our life,” Zakharov said.

Alexander Mitta, winner of the Nika special prize "For Outstanding Contribution to National Cinematography", also supported Sokurov.

"I share the anxieties and despair, we are all concerned about how our generation grows up, so that it grows up under our cares, and not scarecrows," the director said.

Actress Yelena Koreneva, who won the Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in the film Her Name was Mumu, spoke from the stage about political prisoners and detainees on March 26, and actress Yulia Aug stressed that this year the award was a real protest .

“I am very sorry that the viewers will not hear the speeches of Krasovsky, Sokurov and Koreneva. I know that they will cut it out. It has not happened for a very long time that Nika was a protest action. And this fact means that the abscess has ripened,” Aug emphasized. .

Yes, I'm in the hospital now, but I had very good surgeons. I think everything will be fine. There was a difficult period, quite difficult, but step by step, I'm sure I'll get through. This must be done, because there are many things to do, many ideas, many tasks, many dangers ...

Will be back - 100%! You are a strong person in body and spirit. One of the cases, or dangers, as you put it, that you will have to face after discharge is the situation that has developed around the inspection of your studio. What is going on in your opinion? Why did the police undertake this check?

There were no grounds for any such peering into our activities. All the films that we made were delivered absolutely minute by minute, day by day: both large full-length films and short films. All reports were submitted on time.

We hand them over every, in my opinion, three weeks of the filming or preparatory period with photographs, with all documentary evidence. The reporting system is very rigid, at least as far as public money is concerned.

There were no complaints against the director of the fund either. He is a young guy, very well educated, knows five languages, which is very important for me in terms of international activity. Because we need to show our young cinema outside the country. And it is very important that the producer and the director of the fund can communicate...

But some time ago, one of our employees quit, who thought his salary was low, and then he had some other complaints. Prior to that, he borrowed money from both me and the director of the fund.

Yes, this activity has started. He came to the police, told some fantasies about some operations that were carried out here. And here - short and student films, full-length films ... Apparently, in the evenings he went to photograph some documents that remained on the table in the fund: no one made any secret of this. In general, such an absolutely provocative activity. It's just that the person set the goal of jailing me and the director of the fund.

This is Mikhail Georgievsky - a man known for his abilities. This is a great shock for me - he comes from a wonderful St. Petersburg Jewish family, a family of blockade survivors. I have repeatedly visited his parents at home on the Day of the Siege, I have been to his birthdays. It seemed to me that such people, absolutely sophisticated, are simply incapable of such actions. Never in my life have people acted so completely mean. Everything was there, but it wasn't. I am, of course, amazed by this discovery, which is very unpleasant for me.

To be honest, no. Maybe I don't remember. I'm not a vindictive person, I forget very quickly, but at least I always had a lot of wonderful friends around me. Reliable, in the most difficult cases standing nearby, never afraid of anything. I was so relaxed when this man showed up at our work. Maybe this is also the issue.

This is actually a very important aspect of sensations. This man had the keys to my apartment: when I left, he helped with something there. Therefore, now it also has a personal pain reaction. Well, a big lesson for me is who to work with. A very, very big lesson.

Kirill is an outstanding great person, an outstanding, great director with great will. He did all this, as far as I can tell, of course, with the participation of the management of this whole big theatrical business. From the very beginning, when we organized this fund in 2013, I set conditions that I would not touch the money at all. I will not look into any of the sheets, it is enough for me and there will be a lot of artistic tasks. Therefore, comparisons are completely inappropriate, if only I correctly understand the functions that Kirill performed.

Well, there is, of course, another part in which the situations are close. Because he, probably, and I - we very often were critical of the current socio-political situation.

Yes, in public. Kirill only did everything much more seriously and deeper than me. Kirill is still a mathematician, if I'm not mistaken, by his first education. He has a very tenacious, clearly and correctly formulating mind. He is a very deep person. He is one of the most amazing of our contemporaries, in my opinion. As a director, I judge, and as a citizen, because I participated in debates with him: at Kolya Solodnikov's, we had a conversation with him in the Open Library.

These positions, of course, often coincided with us. Although they could be expressed with varying degrees of temperament and poignancy. I understand that in a certain political situation, the number of difficult people, in a sense, independent, has become not very desirable for some part of the ruling class.

Now, by the way, I don't mean the president at all. One on one we had conversations a million times sharper, harder than disputes in a public field. My public intemperance did not arouse on his part a desire to put me in my place, to "push" me, to give, as they say, my brains.

Yes, sure. Because in personal communication he allows this sincerity, and if you are ready to take this cup and drink it, you can do it. It gives such an opportunity if you are able to object in a concentrated manner, to motivate. If, with this motivation, he does not see your personal interest in some problem, he participates in the dialogue and brings the dialogue to the end.

As soon as he sees that his interlocutor shows some kind of persistence or formulates something, demonstrating his personal interest, then, according to my observations, this person loses the opportunity to talk further in the face of the president.

I needed a meeting with him long before this whole unpleasant story began. I am currently working on a film about the events of the Second World War, trying to answer from an emotional and psychological point of view why this war took place. There are the main historical characters, well-known European participants in this war.

And so, I needed a meeting with Putin in order to ask questions that could clarify the psychology of making personal decisions in difficult historical circumstances. When historical decisions are made not by understanding that these are historical decisions, but under the influence of the power of some male character.

My communication with Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, so sincere and completely open, taught me a lot. Subsequently, I asked a number of questions to Vladimir Vladimirovich, which related, among other things, to territorial situations: expansions or contractions, relations with previously adopted international treaties, questions about neutralities ...

The Crimean situation is absolutely illustrative for me and understandable. But in relation to my film, I'm more interested in psychological motivations, its internal psychological state, because this is a complex film. In fact, it is a four-language game - very complex in terms of personnel organization, technology, and technique. I haven't done this yet. Therefore, it is very important for me not to be mistaken in my ideas about how and what matures in a person inside.

Yes. I relayed these questions of mine and the need for me (as a director) to meet, but I didn't get any response. Ultimately, I don't have a direct communication channel, so I don't know. Perhaps this meeting will never take place.

I understand. If my physical condition allows, because the doctors categorically say - it is impossible. You still need to get from one city to another. I can't walk except on crutches, I'm just about to have my stitches removed. I'm not afraid of all this. The question is, for whom I will be a burden there: I need someone to help me. If I am at this meeting, then, as sometimes happened, I simply hand him a note or go up to him, as everyone can do there if he does not leave. This also does not give guarantees, because, perhaps, he will not want to talk on the scale of such issues. May be.

You know, I can't exclude anything, I'll tell you frankly. Because honesty and honor I now see a little around. I see very little honesty and honor in the behavior of the bureaucratic apparatus and the higher apparatus. To say that it comes from the President - of course not. Who am I that suddenly a sophisticated operation will be developed to build me into some kind of ... No, no, no.

On the other hand, of course, there is a desire among people from the special services to create some kind of lagoon of dangers all the time, to develop them, apparently. I know that some officers of the special services did not like it very much when, at a meeting with the president, I spoke about Sentsov. I was talking, it seems, about the fact that he was misled - the specialists who conducted this case created a legal conflict on purpose, they came up with something, designed it, and these terrible 20 years turned out. Everyone understood that these 20 years were not there.

But the president is so convinced of this, they provide such documents that he believes in it. Although here, of course, there is already a political conflict. With Sentsov, this is a 100% policy. It's no longer there either Christianity or any law. It's just 100% politics.

Alexander Nikolayevich, when clouds began to gather over Kirill Serebrennikov, many friends and acquaintances advised him to leave the country out of harm's way. Surely now there are people who will advise you the same.

You know, since February I have been advised to leave and not come back. For me professionally it is possible: I have worked with actors and with my colleagues from Japan to Iceland, and this is very interesting for me. But, you know, I'm not ready to part with Russia, because this is my homeland.

Without any jokes - my homeland. Although I am a child of European and Russian culture, I cannot separate either of them in any way. All this infrastructure, structure and fabric of Russian culture is connected with a really living people. When I am in some of our student classrooms, in high schools or in colonies, I like my people, you know. I really like him. I understand him. At times I hate because of the fact that some kind of generic or some other shortcomings, vices occur. But I like my people. Even after all those nightmarish Stalinist purges.

Go to the auditorium of some good university, stay in class, look at the faces of young people. Just on the face. I'm probably such a socioromantic because I look at a human face and I like it. I immediately see some warm shades in the soul of a person, the history of his morning or yesterday evening. I like this people, I don't like what is happening to these people. And sometimes I don't like how people behave, and even more I don't like how they behave with people.

When I was awarded the "Nika" award, I said that today there were dispersal of the demonstration, dispersed the youth. It was probably the first such public appeal. At least take care of the girls, at least don't touch the girls on these accelerations. Then, we have been waiting for this youth for so long - and it has come. And we meet her like this.

Even earlier, in conversations with Matvienko and with our former governor, I always told them: “Gather the youth at the stadiums, anywhere. Sit on the field and talk until you're stupid, even around the clock. Bring tea there, bring some buns there and talk, talk. If you stop talking to young people, they will start running along Nevsky Prospekt and throwing grenades at restaurants and shops.” Thank God they don't work that way. This is how Western youth act when they take to the streets. Thank God, they don't act like that yet, but no one from the political leadership is going to create institutions of inter-party dialogue or something, no one wants to talk to young anarchists.

After the speech of director Alexander Sokurov at the presentation of the Nika film award, the audience gave a standing ovation, many of those present stood up ...

At the beginning of his speech, Sokurov said that he was waiting for a decision from Putin on the issue they discussed - the fate of director Oleg Sentsov. Sokurov called the lack of dialogue with the youth who took to the streets a mistake. “The state makes a big mistake by behaving so familiarly with young people, with schoolchildren and students.<…>You can not start a civil war among schoolchildren and students. We need to hear them. None of our politicians wants to hear them, no one talks to them.<…>They are afraid to do it. Why? It's impossible. It is impossible to endure it any longer,” Sokurov said.

He drew attention to the tough actions of law enforcement agencies at mass rallies, especially against girls and women. “I want to address our deputies. To male deputies, because women will not accept such a new law. Let's pass a law that prohibits arresting and generally touching women and girls participating in protests,” suggested the director, whose speech was repeatedly interrupted by applause and shouts of “Bravo!”.

“We have said many times, for many years: “Where are you? Where are you students? Where are you students? Do you notice that you are inside the country, do you notice what is happening in this country?” There was silence, they were not. So they appeared, ”the director stated. “You and I must do everything so that the humanitarian development of our society, our young people, takes place. Because everything that is connected with the replacement of enlightenment, education with some kind of religious dogmas, everything that is connected with the introduction of religious institutions into the civil and political space leads to the collapse of the country,” Sokurov said.

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Andrey Medvedev. About Sokurov and not only...

Russian political observers, according to director Alexander Sokurov, should appear before the Hague Tribunal. "They must be punished. They are just criminals who work for both state and private channels," Sokurov said. Andrey Medvedev, political observer of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, discusses the statement of a well-known cultural figure...

Russian political observers, according to the director Alexandra Sokurova must appear before the Hague Tribunal. "They must be punished. They are just criminals who work for both state and private channels," Sokurov said.

Andrey Medvedev, political observer of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company - discusses the statement of a well-known cultural figure ...

Everything is bad!

This is the leitmotif of the life perception of the domestic intelligentsia. And always. This is the context in which the domestic intellectual liberal "party" has been for the last 200 years, and 150 for sure. In general, the interview of director Sokurov can be characterized as follows. The Russian intellectual went about his favorite thing: he began to talk about what he does not know and does not understand at all! But he talks about this from the position of a prophet, a creator of meaning, a person who carries unconditional and immutable truth.

There are a lot of funny things in the interview: both about Islam and about journalists. According to him, "someday these political observers will appear before the Hague Tribunal as provocateurs who have inflicted enormous damage on Russia's humanitarian space and the entire Russian people." This is about Ukraine and how they covered events in Ukraine. "These radio and television heralds are engaged in throwing matches during a fire. If I were in power, I would pay special attention to these people who create the prerequisites for international conflicts. They are just criminals who work on both public and private channels" .

The tradition of domestic intellectuals is to sympathize with terrorists

That's who the director Sokurov considers criminals? Journalists. And the presence in Ukraine, where a fire is blazing, about which these journalists periodically talk, private neo-Nazi punitive battalions who fight under Nazi symbols and Nazi slogans, who in terms of their atrocities quite caught up with the guys from the SS divisions "Galicia" and punitive battalions formed from Ukrainian collaborators during the Second World War? This does not cause hostility in Sokurov. They are not needed in The Hague. He somehow does not notice them at all, although even the Ukrainian Themis was forced to notice them. Remember, the case Battalion "Tornado", which was so dispersed that he was forced even in Kyiv to arrest him as a result. They committed such atrocities that even the Kiev authorities were forced to bring them to justice. Here they do not bother director Sokurov by the very fact of their existence, The Hague is not about them.

Or director Sentsov, who sat down for terrorism, because he and his friends were preparing terrorist attacks in the Crimea. And yet, he evokes sympathy in Sokurov. Other people who could have been hurt do not evoke sympathy from him. Although in reality this is such a tradition of domestic intellectuals: to sympathize with terrorists.

For understanding, director Sentsov, the Ukrainian authorities wanted to change. That is, from the whole group they needed only Oleg Sentsov. They didn't care about everyone else. And they came out with a cunning offer to change him for someone who could be needed by Moscow. According to some operational data, director O. Sentsov coordinated the activities of several cells on the territory of Crimea. And the fact that he participated in the activities of the Automaidan and, in all likelihood, in the defeat of the Anti-Maidan columns that were returning to Crimea, was simply not closely attended to.

The man was preparing terrorist attacks, and they took him on this. Well, they carried out several comical acts of terrorism, burned, for example, a branch of United Russia. Well, the next one was not comical. IED (improvised explosive device) they have collected.

"Peacekeeping" position of the director

Creator Sokurov says: "We must have a categorical condition - not to fight with our neighbors. I would introduce the principle of mandatory peaceful coexistence with all countries with which we have common borders into the Constitution. Even if we were attacked, we must find the strength not to use the army, not invade other people's territory. You can quarrel with your neighbors, but you can't fight." It is a pity that the Ministry of Defense did not know about such outstanding peacekeeping abilities of Sokurov in 2008, when the Georgian army attacked Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia and simply killed both peacekeepers and civilians in Tskhinvali. If we had known then about such principles of the director Sokurov, there would have been no need to send troops there. Sokurov should have been sent to South Ossetia. He would have come out and, probably, agreed with the Georgian military. Right there, on the spot. If I had found the strength not to use the army, I would have been able to. Not? It seems to me that a word spoken by a person should find practical application.

A. Sokurov about Russia's turn to the East

Director Sokurov called Russia's current turn to the East "just stupidity." According to him, "how many stupid things have been done by the Russian state, which still cannot really be created." That is, the thousand-year history of the Russian state does not lead Sokurov to think that the state was created, that it took shape.

The state is, first of all, traditions and experience, time-tested and confirmed by national consensus. Apparently, we have no traditions, no time-tested experience. However, other more serious historians believe that Russia has its own historical experience, which is very difficult and complex, but, nevertheless, gives Russia a special place in the world and special prospects.

Interestingly, the Russian liberal intelligentsia, every time Russia made an ideological and political turn to the East, showed simply incredible indignation. When Russia began to annex Turkestan, it is clear that there was no economic logic in this, but there was political logic in it. If Russian troops had not appeared there, British military and British military bases would have appeared there at a distance of two day's march from Orenburg. And the entire liberal community then said that we absolutely do not need this, a waste of time and money. When Nicholas II made a turn to the East at the beginning of the 20th century and began to actively invest in the Far East and China, when he did not agree with the European powers to organize the forcible division of China into occupation zones, he actually saved China as a single state, then the liberal public terribly condemned. But then there was a whole economic program: the construction of a railway to the Far East, and the construction of new ports, and investments in China. But all this caused terrible indignation among the Moscow oligarchy, Moscow bankers, because then the economic center of gravity could shift from Moscow to Kazan, which would become a transit point through which goods would go to China and Asia, new economic ties would be established. This economic turn to the East was terribly condemned. And in the end, as a result of intrigues, it was slowed down, and, in general, Russia was drawn into the military alliance of the Entente (with England and France) and further into the First World War.

Russia is the successor of the Byzantine civilization

When Sokurov says that Russia is civilizationally more connected with Europe, I again have a question. Religion, state traditions, cultural traditions and traditions of writing, Russia received not only from Europe, but from the Byzantine Empire, which in its purest form was not Europe. Yes, this is the Eastern Roman Empire, but Byzantium was never Europe either geographically or ideologically. This is what allowed one or the other Pope to declare crusades against Orthodox schismatics. And this allowed the crusaders to completely calmly rob Constantinople and kill Orthodox Christian residents of Constantinople.

Russia just received all its civilizational traditions from Byzantium. Including the lack of colonial thinking. Russia never had colonies, but the West did. Because in the Catholic and especially in the Protestant consciousness there are those to whom it is given, and there are those to whom it is not given.

A. Sokurov said that the church in Russia should be separated from the state and that, as soon as a decision is made to create an Orthodox party, the flywheel of the destruction of the country will start. And if an Orthodox party is created, then rival Muslims will immediately join the race. And then inside Russia there can be a religious war not for life, but for death.

A. Medvedev: It seems to me that Sokurov is just writing some kind of script for his new, yet another wonderful film, which, as always, no one will watch, which will receive an award at some festival and which will be filmed, as always, with state money, so that then director Sokurov could criticize the state.

In general, however, I wonder if there is such a person who got up straight and went to watch Sokurov's films in the cinema? Sokurov's films are predominantly feature films. It is believed that this is a special, author's movie, not for any cattle like political observers, for whom The Hague is crying, but for decent people. I have a question: among decent people with good faces, are there many who just sat down and watched Sokurov's movie from beginning to end? I'm not talking about film critics, I'm talking about ordinary people.

Cinema about European values

In the last movie A. Sokurov "La Francophonie" the beginning of the Second World War and the personal history of the director of the Louvre, who protected the national collection of this museum when the fascist invaders invaded, are shown.

A. Medvedev: Let's assume that the fascist invaders did not invade France much. And there was no need to defend anything. In the entire French Resistance, fewer people fought with fried liver and young Beaujolais than served the French on the side of the Nazis in the Vichy army and fought on the Eastern Front. It turns out that Sokurov is interested in filming not about how, say, in a starving, dying Leningrad, the Hermitage collection was saved, or about the employees of the orphanage, who one after another died of hunger, but they did not steal a piece of bread from the children. He is interested in European values.

What was there to save, sorry? Have you seen the newsreel footage of the Germans entering Paris or the Germans being in Paris? The Germans from the Eastern Front went to France as an encouragement to rest and heal their wounds, take a walk, hang out with the girls. What had to be saved from whom? You know, this is some kind of distorted perception of life.

Understand and forgive?

It's like with the terrorist Sentsov. Again, this is very traditional for domestic liberals. Vaughn Sokurov says to forgive Sentsov, because he did nothing wrong. In the same way, when Alexander II was killed, the entire domestic liberal intellectual community wrote to Alexander III that he should forgive the assassin, forgive the Narodnaya Volya, that they should not be hanged. How intellectuals like to talk about nothing in general.

To me, there is no difference. Whether Sentsov, whether Basaev, whether Kibalchich, whether Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, whether Boris Savenkov. These are all the same people. These are terrorists, murderers who have been destroying and are trying to destroy my country.

However, the Russian practice of combating terrorism does not carry a special grain and content. For example, in the UK, a teenager who wrote a tweet in support of ISIS was given two full years. The boy is 15 years old, he joked, wrote a tweet in support of ISIS, he gathered a group of some Mujahideen brothers, and a couple, as they say. In the West, in general, for stories of virtual terrorism on the Web, with the support of terrorists there, with the creation of groups, people are imprisoned all the time and given full terms. Two, three years, five years. For tweets, for Facebook posts.

Resentment

We are all discussing Sokurov's interview. And I understand what the problem is with Sokurov. He says that Putin has his own cinematic biographer, Nikita Mikhalkov. This is how he spoke. All because of resentment. I would like to be a cinematic biographer myself. And he says he knows "many directors who would like to become biographers." Although the president himself does not need it. There is some resentment in the creator.

Sokurov is not only dissatisfied with a conditionally degrading Russia, but he also says the same thing about European leaders: that they are all degenerates, that they are all completely unrespectable. And in general, it’s not clear who they let in. Merkel is a sad sight.

About the wrong profession

And in the end, he says that "it seems to him that he chose the wrong profession, he did not fully realize himself in the cinema, what can I say now." Fine! A man lived his life, made films for state money, a film that no one really needed, and then he says: hell, Putin has a different biographer, but I didn’t fully realize myself in cinema.

The first and last paragraphs of Sokurov's interview are the most important. Everything between them is the grumbling of a frustrated, upset person.

I look at Western creators, I look at Riddley Scott, for example. He makes a wonderful, very good movie. I'm looking at Steven Spielberg. Talk to them frankly, they will probably say that they didn’t shoot something either. But they are just commercially successful guys. And I am sure that you will never hear such whining from them. Do they make bad movies? No. Does their cinema concern some subtle matters, does it cling to the strings of the soul? Certainly. Do they have bad films? No. Commercially successful? Yes. That is, somehow people all harmoniously combine.

Or take the movie Schindler's List. Absolutely commercially successful project. But is he important? Important. About people? About people. About a feat? About a feat. Does it give you a chance to think? Gives. And there are many such examples. After all, not only militants are filmed in the West. "Schindler's List" made 15 times more money than it cost, which cannot be said about any of Sokurov's films. Maybe it's just that the person has chosen the right profession?