Since its premiere in Russia in 2013, the epic documentary Pipeline by Vitaly Mansky has received a number of awards at film festivals worldwide. Starting January 14, 2016, Czech audience will be finally allowed to appreciate the qualities of the film which portraits the routing of a legendary Trans-Siberian gaspipe.
Constructing the pipeline Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhgorod that in 1983 connected natural gas resources of western Siberia with its European consumers became a crucial milestone for Russian gas industry. The renowned Ukrainian director Vitaly Mansky took a journey along the pipeline in an effort to find out how average people live within a small distance. A haul of a frozen Siberian river full of dead fish; a wedding in a chipped block of flats in Chabarovsk; an Orthodox mass in a sidetracked waggon; a kennel from an old washing machine; or praising the ideals of communism together with discontent over contemporary leadership and fear from uncertain future: all this eloquently illustrates the – often absurd – everyday reality of today's Russia. Visually elaborated road-movie is, at the same time, an unnerving portrait of the legendary Trans-Siberian gaspipe that is still depended on by most of Europe.
“On the way along the gaspipe I tried to understand why we are so different. Why something that suits a Russian means death for a German or a Czech person. In my opinion just very few filmmakers from Russia went through such an expedition. If they did, they would probably find out that the difference roots already in genetic information,” Mansky says about the movie. The documentary by Vitaly Mansky Pipeline also has a significant relation to the Czech Republic. Co-producents of the piece are Czech Television and Hypermarket Film. Besides a whole bunch of awards from festivals in London, Leipzig, Amsterdam, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and many others, the movie also got the Crystal Globe for the “Best documentary film in the category for films above 30 minutes in length” at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Vitaly Mansky is an experienced Russian artist and author of more than 30 films. Last year he was a guest at East Doc Platform, and earlier in 2013, his documentary was supported by Institute of Documentary Film within East Silver Market.