CAIRO - 8 December 2020: Acclaimed Russian filmmaker and this year’s head of jury at the Cairo International Film Festival, Alexander Sokurov held a masterclass for the Cairo Industry Days program on December 7.
He is the man behind masterpieces such as Russian Ark (2002), a film that revisits Russian history through lavish sets and performances in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg; it is shot entirely in one take.
Another notable film is The Sun (2005), the final installment of a trilogy exploring historical figures and the effects of power.
The film follows the Japanese Emperor Shōwa during the final days of World War II. Both films were featured in this year’s festival.
For instance, one of his most known films is Faust (2012) which is a retelling of a well-known legend. Sokurov reimagines the classic deal with the devil as part of an examination of the effects of power on a person. The film was awarded the Golden Lion at the 68th Venice Film Festival.
He insists that mass audiences no longer consume good films.
“Even if I have five sequels, I make them all different,” he affirms.
Indeed, this tetralogy on power focuses on figures such as Lenin and Hitler, two different men who led opposite lives but are linked by their role in history.
Even his Francofonia (2016), nominated for the coveted Golden Lion, is another museum exploration but bears no similarity to Russian Ark.
At times poetic and at times utilizing fantasy, it performs the history of art in The Louvre.
This drive, Sokurov believes, has disappeared from the current cinema industry. He laments the loss of good writers in the current young generation.
“There is no Hemingway,” the filmmaker states. “US commercial films have taken over,” he regrets, “they
Cinema is relatively young, compared to other art forms which have developed throughout humanity.
Yet, already “there is no more art today,” Sokurov reminds us, “because of capitalism.” But cinema has inherited from both visual and aural arts, painting and music.
Their history is meshed into that of film, meaning the latter can benefit from their development. Cinema is only a “teenager,” he believes. It can still grow.
With an extensive filmography ranging from features to documentaries, across an array of genres, the filmmaker is known for taking risks.
He has filmed in extreme conditions, such as sub- zero weather which nearly damaged the crew’s equipment, or with a cast of thousands operating seamlessly in one shot.
These, he explains in his talk, are the product of “creativity and divine talent.” Two attributes which are necessary for any director to feel inspired.
With a plethora of films and awards under his belt, it is hard to imagine that his graduation project as a film student was rejected.
But the director does not focus on such events, instead he appreciates the help he’s received throughout his career, like the support of filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky who encouraged his work at a time it was deemed anti-Soviet in the 1980s. “That is what I remember,” he says affectionately. In the end, “film is my destiny,” Sokurov concludes.
And it could be anyone else’s too, if they have the talent and the willingness to nurture it that is.
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