Holy Culture!
So-called Houses of Culture are the epic and constant existing symbols of the USSR, famous culture and knowledge hubs, which survived the collapse of the Soviet empire and came back to life after a certain oblivion.
In 2016, the ruling party of Russia, United Russia, together with the Russian government decides to launch the program Rural House of Culture. Millions of rubles allocated for the revival of Houses of Culture in rural areas during 2017-2019. Authorities are busy with construction work inside and outside the buildings, and do not care about the creative content which has been the same for a very long time. Politicians are making an impression of deep involvement into culture, but in real they only do never-ending construction which has always been a very good reason to wash some money. Nothing is done for upgrading of the professional skills in the cultural sphere, the salaries there are extremely low. But despite everything workers of the Houses of Culture kept their unstoppable enthusiasm since Soviet times and continue to work. These people are very passionate but very often their professionalism is just symbolic and they keep on making confusing aesthetic mess already for a while.
Do these places reflect Russian inability to change and the constant possibility of the raise of neo-sovietism?
A journey across rural Houses of Culture, through the most strange hobby clubs of self defence, twerking and folk singing. Exquisitely observed documentary puzzle of overenthusiastic and creatively stuck people; tragicomic glimpse behind the doors and stage curtains of powerful institutions where the culture for masses is made.
In 2016, the ruling party of Russia, United Russia, together with the Russian government decides to launch the program Rural House of Culture. Millions of rubles allocated for the revival of Houses of Culture in rural areas during 2017-2019. Authorities are busy with construction work inside and outside the buildings, and do not care about the creative content which has been the same for a very long time. Politicians are making an impression of deep involvement into culture, but in real they only do never-ending construction which has always been a very good reason to wash some money. Nothing is done for upgrading of the professional skills in the cultural sphere, the salaries there are extremely low. But despite everything workers of the Houses of Culture kept their unstoppable enthusiasm since Soviet times and continue to work. These people are very passionate but very often their professionalism is just symbolic and they keep on making confusing aesthetic mess already for a while.
Do these places reflect Russian inability to change and the constant possibility of the raise of neo-sovietism?
A journey across rural Houses of Culture, through the most strange hobby clubs of self defence, twerking and folk singing. Exquisitely observed documentary puzzle of overenthusiastic and creatively stuck people; tragicomic glimpse behind the doors and stage curtains of powerful institutions where the culture for masses is made.
The Schubert Effect
A guy called Stanislav Schubert lives some 300 km from the Russian capital in the very heart of Siberia. Schubert is half-German and he is very proud of his origin. His father's passed away a long time ago, and Schubert 's mother raised him on her own. She picked up on her son’s main passion, filmmaking, very early on. He was already operating a camera at the age of 8. His mum took on the role of his producer and assistant camera. Even though his hometown was once the center of Soviet documentary filmmaking, making a career in film in Siberia in what is commonly referred to as the ‘roaring nineties’ in Russian history proved to be impossible. But Schubert never gave up and continued to pursue his dream.
Schubert and his Mom lived in one of the roughest districts. Stanislav’s first films were about the local thugs and bandits. They either pitied him, or respected their own Vertov, either way, they never lay a finger on him.
Today Stanislav Schubert is a well-known public figure in Novossibirsk and beyond. He set up his own movie school. Together with his students he started to dramatize Tarantino, and make war films. The elderly generation of Siberian documentary filmmakers despise Schubert. To them, he is a wannabe obsessed with self-PR who never gets the job done and doesn’t know much about cinema. This might seem true at first sight: Schubert ’s life is weirdly cyclical – whenever he starts something new, he is full of excitement, readily spreading his passion all around; but soon his enthusiasm wears off and he switches to something different. He doesn’t think life’s been too good to him, he often refers to himself as a loser. Together with his students, Schubert gets carried away, distracted from the daily reality, sometimes confusing life and cinema.
The Schubert Effect is an ironic tragicomedy about an amateur filmmaker born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Schubert and his Mom lived in one of the roughest districts. Stanislav’s first films were about the local thugs and bandits. They either pitied him, or respected their own Vertov, either way, they never lay a finger on him.
Today Stanislav Schubert is a well-known public figure in Novossibirsk and beyond. He set up his own movie school. Together with his students he started to dramatize Tarantino, and make war films. The elderly generation of Siberian documentary filmmakers despise Schubert. To them, he is a wannabe obsessed with self-PR who never gets the job done and doesn’t know much about cinema. This might seem true at first sight: Schubert ’s life is weirdly cyclical – whenever he starts something new, he is full of excitement, readily spreading his passion all around; but soon his enthusiasm wears off and he switches to something different. He doesn’t think life’s been too good to him, he often refers to himself as a loser. Together with his students, Schubert gets carried away, distracted from the daily reality, sometimes confusing life and cinema.
The Schubert Effect is an ironic tragicomedy about an amateur filmmaker born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My Russian 90's
After leaving Russia in 2003, I return with my mother to Volgograd. Between an idealized childhood that I carry in my memories, and her painful reality of these harsh time we once lived together, we reminisce about the decade following the 1991 Moscow putsch.
Girls Sometimes
More than 30 years ago Anna suddenly came upon a strange advertisement posted at a bus stop: "This school welcomes everyone: even if you’re overly talkative, introvert, slow, passionate or...redheaded." It sounded like the best school on Earth, and the ad announced they were enrolling. Anna submitted for the creative contest, made it through the interview phase, and passed the written exam. Her acceptance to the school seemed to be her lucky ticket - only the best of the best were accepted. While their parents struggled to make ends meet during Russia's tough and unpredictable 1990s, the students spent their days at the school. They studied subjects that didn't even exist at any other school in the area, subjects like linguistics, history of religions and arts, and semiotics. They were truly gifted students and after graduating were accepted to top Russian. The aptly named League of Schools had been their safe space, their own state, and their own universe–they even had their own constitution, which every student knew by heart. And they all wrote the word "school" with a capital "s" as well. Then twenty years later the graduates realized: they had been dragged into a horrific nightmare by teachers they trusted and looked up to. Those teachers, talented creatives without whom Anna could never imagine her formative years, are people she now simply wants to erase from her memories. Nobody raised an eyebrow at the deputy for educational work kissing female students and the principal regularly inviting students to his countryside house. And no one sounded an alarm when the principal could easily sleep in the same sleeping bag with the underaged girl. It took twenty whole years for the alumni to realize that many of them had been verbally and sexually harassed, abused, and assaulted. And that everyone at the school had been part of this system: some were victims, some were rapists, and others like Anna – blind witnesses.