Copernicus Films - Moscow Archives

J-FEST Moscow 2011. Festival of Contemporary Japanese Culture

2011-11-30T19:44:00.001+03:00

J-FEST was a festival of Contemporary Japanese culture held in Moscow at the Central House of Artists. It was designed to showcase or present Japanese culture with an emphasis on youth and young people with the accent on phenomena like manga and anime, cosplay etc. The event was held in the House of Artists in the centre of Moscow. I wanted to the film the event partly out of curiosity and partly to collect material for the Japan-Philosophical Landscapes project and maybe get an interview or two with some of the main participants and speakers at the event. We arrived an hour or two after the event had started and I was surprised by how many people had turned up. Several hundred people were milling around the foyer and in the various exhibition points where events were being held.

A fashion show was just ending in the DNK hall with fashions from the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Outside in the foyer young Russians dressed in various costumes of manga and anime style were thronging around the two floors where the event was taking place. On one side of the foyer a whole wall had been given over to Kyoto Seiko Universtity with a video instalation dedicated on the theme of the recent earthquake and a mural being painted by students from the university.

The costumes were various but mostly on the themes of maids, cosplay, anime and manga with a strong influence of gothic but generally recognisable as derived from the street fashions of Harajuku.

At the press conference the panel consisted of the architect Takayuki Suzuki and May J the singer who heads the show J-Melo on NHK . J-Melo is a cult musical TV show Japanese TV channel NHK. It is broadcast in 180 countries and regions, and finally made it to Moscow. May J. is of Japanese, Iranian, Turkish, Russian, Spanish and English extraction.

It was strange to see these symbols and emblems of Japanese culture being played out in Moscow but one way of understanding this phenomena is with reference to Takamasa Sakurai was also on the panal. A journalist and a media content producer - he is convinced that the world will certainly have a "kawaii revolution." He is convinced that due to the popularity of their pop culture, Japan could become a diplomatic mediator between different countries. In recent years, Sakurai-san has been an active lecturer in various countries.

The next day of the festival I managed to secure an interview with Takayuki Suzuki

Suzuki-sensei is trying to reconcile modern building and new forms of the 21st century with traditional Japanese ideas of beauty. Thus, in their universitybuilding, which he designed, he tried to include as much as possible, "the sky" which "need students to dream."
In his lecture he spoke about contemporary Japanese landscapes from the perspective of Japanese culture.
Takayuki Suzuki: "Situated in the Far East, modern Japan is one of the centers of world culture and therefore for understanding the future we need to talk about the features of Japanese culture, characteristic of the Japanese urban landscape and everyday life of Japanese youth".

After his interview I am hoping to use some of the material for the project Japan Philosophical Landscapes. His work and ideas may form the nexus between traditional and contemporary understandings of landscape and pinch together these two major themes in the film.

Japan-Philosophical Landscapes "Gingaku ji-Landscapes and Sandscapes"

2011-11-02T16:44:00.001+03:00

This section of the film focuses on the Silver Pavilion of Ginkaku ji. It suits my purposes over the more popular Golden Pavilion in Kyoto as it describes more directly the phenomenon of Philosophical landscapes. Most people are concerned with the Golden pavilion because of its obvious beauty, a striking golden temple set in the middle of a pond, its still golden reflection a mirrored upturned version of itself creating an uncanny sensation of a floating vision in mid air.

However in some ways the Silver Pavilion, Ginkaku ji, is no less beautiful despite its subdued presence if compared to the Golden Pavilion. The addition of moss covered grounds and what I would call "sandscapes" - abstract images made with sand and grit give it a unique quality as a Zen temple. They do not represent the landscape or depict a particular landscape but communicate an essence or idea. The cone of sand in the garden resembles Mount Fuji however this is but a surface interpretation. A mountain is seemingly a solid thing ostensibly made of hard rock. However mountains can fall or increase in size with volcanic eruptions. A miniature mountain of sand conveys this state of flux or indeterminateness of things and life which Zen Buddhism teaches. The volume of sand shaped into a cone is held in a state of static but fluid tension which can change with a gust of wind or a heavy downpour of rain and then reconstituted anew. Similarly sand as waves convey the inter penetrability of things. This constant blurring of borders between materials conveys the solid but non materiality of an idea given expression in three dimensional space. The essence of Zen Buddhism.

However in some ways the Silver Pavilion, Ginkaku ji, is no less beautiful despite its subdued presence if compared to the Golden Pavilion. The addition of moss covered grounds and what I would call "sandscapes" - abstract images made with sand and grit give it a unique quality as a Zen temple. They do not represent the landscape or depict a particular landscape but communicate an essence or idea. The cone of sand in the garden resembles Mount Fuji however this is but a surface interpretation. A mountain is seemingly a solid thing ostensibly made of hard rock. However mountains can fall or increase in size with volcanic eruptions. A miniature mountain of sand conveys this state of flux or indeterminateness of things and life which Zen Buddhism teaches. The volume of sand shaped into a cone is held in a state of static but fluid tension which can change with a gust of wind or a heavy downpour of rain and then reconstituted anew. Similarly sand as waves covey the inter penetrability of things. This constant blurring of borders between materials shows the solid but non materiality of an idea given expression in three dimensional space. The essence of Zen Buddhism.

Download or rent Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre

2011-10-26T20:12:00.001+03:00

Soviet Art And Architecture 1915-35, Royal Academy of Arts

2011-10-26T13:13:00.001+03:00

Soviet Art And Architecture 1915-35, Royal Academy of Arts

Posted by TNT Admin at Oct 24 2011, 11:04 AM

1Share

Japan - Philosophical Landscapes - First part released

2011-10-16T18:42:00.001+03:00

The last few days have been a process of clearing away old obstacles and barriers in order to proceed with a several new projects. A few years ago we spent a fair amount of time in Japan shooting material for a couple of films which I have been working on and editing. The work on this project was interrupted by the Stanislavsky film "Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre" which is now complete. After revisiting the Japanese project it is re-emerging as web documentary called "Japan - Philosophical Landscapes". More information about it can be found here. Also the first part has been uploaded to the internet (see below).

At the same time a new site is being constructed to accommodate the Fairground Booth Project and discussions are taking place as to how best proceed in organising the logistics of the film and its corresponding documentary projects "Carnival and the Russian Theatre" and "Vahktangov and the Russian Theatre". Once the site is up and running details will be released.

New web documentary – “Japan- Philosophical Landscapes” almost ready for release

2011-10-14T18:41:00.001+03:00

Some exciting work getting done at the moment. Working on the setting up of two web sites. One for a web documentary about Japanese art and culture called simply "Japan - Philosophical Landscapes". The site is still in the process of construction so it is not fully operational as yet with some modules and elements hidden. It is a project which I have been working on and off for about two years ever since we returned from filming in Japan a second time over a three month period. At last it is taking some shape and I am ready to start releasing it in instalments on the web and have set up a new web site specifically for this purpose.

That is not to say that I have neglected the Russian Theatre project centred around Blok's play The Fairground Booth and the two documentary films "Vakhatangov and the Russian Theatre" and "Carnival and the Russian Theatre". I am in the process of building a website which will become the focus of this project with information, blogs and articles to chart it's progress.

More news as things develop.

New Copernicus Films storefront for purchase of DVDs in UK

2011-09-26T17:51:00.001+03:00

Have been updating the web site to include a store front which specifically gives the opportunity for those in the UK who are interested in buying Copernicus Films DVDs the opportunity to do so. Previously it was necessary to buy the disc on Amazon.com in the USA and pay for shipping to the UK. People have been approaching me on social websites and by e-mail wanting to purchase the discs in the UK. Now there is a facility to purchase disc in the UK with free shipping. Check here for more information. Alternatively click on the tab above PURCHASE DVDs ON LINE and in the sub menu click “Purchase DVDs in the UK”

Process" in Film making in relation to "The Fairground Booth

2011-09-21T20:07:00.001+03:00

Making my way around Moscow to meetings and checking out various possibilities, cameras etc, for the films. The last few days have been a question of working out a tone and style for the film adaptation of The Fairground Booth. The accompanying documentaries in the project "Vakhtangov and the Russian Theatre" and "Carnival in Russian Theatre" are relatively straight forward with the stress on relatively. However a film adaptation of Blok's play is distinctly problematic. Firstly, there are many stereotypical takes on the main characters -Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin which I want to avoid. I aim to find a particular tone and style for the production and this will effect the overall design for the play, costumes set and general look. This will take time so the best thing is to continue with the shooting script and background research to all the three films. This will provide the necessary depth once some of the other questions begin to get solved. Its a similar situation I faced in the film "Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde". It was the first film I made in Moscow and required scenes showing Rodchenko at work at his desk and other scenes of Rodchenko. For an extended account about the making of this film click here.

In this film I needed to solve two basic problems. The style in which I would shoot and casting the role of Rodchenko. It took a long time and followed a specific process of finding the right person for the role. A similar process is emerging once again whereby there are a lot of questions and and you have to wait for some of the answers.

Update: Autumn Grandeur in Moscow

2011-09-13T08:20:00.001+03:00

Posted on September 12, 2011 by copernicusfilms| Leave a comment

A brief update. Will follow up on location for Fairground Booth film maybe Tomorrow. Other work continuing on scripts for “Carnival in Russian Theatre” and Vahktangov documentary. Worked most of the weekend updating blogs and internet sites social media etc Plus some experiments in filming with green screens and lighting. Reading Gogol as background material.

Things gradually taking shape on this film project although I’m still no nearer to getting back into the Moscow rhythm since returning from the dacha outside Moscow. All across Moscow rolling dark clouds pass by my apartment window high up on the seventh floor perched on a hill a few minutes walk away from the Moskva River, in a vast panorama of Moscow and it distant environs. Beautiful in its seemingly threatening grandeur. Moscow has expanded over the centuries in concentric rings and it seems like our apartment sits at one of the epicentres of the first ring. The scene outside is a sure sign autumn is here.

Kandinsky and the Russian House

2011-09-10T09:06:00.002+03:00

Watch "Kandinsky and the Russian House" by Michael Craig and Copernicus Films
Kandinsky and the Russian House is the 6th in a series of documentary films about the Russian Avant-garde. This film is about Kandinsky and his pioneering work in abstract art at the beginning of the century in Russia and in Germany. Using archive footage and locations in Munich and Moscow this film follows Kandinsky's development of abstract art. The film is available on DVD. For more information.
The Russian House was the name given to the cottage in Murnau in Bavaria - Southern Germany by the local towns people. Here Kandinsky and his partner Gabrielle Munter lived worked and painted. Various painters and artists visited Kandinsky here and it became the focus for what later became the Blue Rider Group of artists in Munich.
Click on the arrow below to watch the film.

Day and Night in Chekhov Country

2011-08-25T16:01:00.011+03:00

The early evening and night in the Russian countryside is a unique phenomenon. Mute in its stillness but full of sound and movement as if the earth itself has come alive. Humming and buzzing with life. A myriad of creatures, birds and insects live out their fate and the forest stirs with unseen movement. It is the time when the emotions become attuned to the world and it seems we hear the fullness of its shifting chords and languid phrases. It is the time which Chekhov often chose in his plays to reveal the heightened awareness of the characters, where they re experience life's betrayals and traumas as the intensity of the night encloses around the already enclosed world of the dacha.
Anyway that's enough lyricism for one blog - on with the work. I work all day now, writing and sifting through the material for the films. I work better in the open air and even better when it rains for some reason. The long days give ample opportunity for prolonged activity and for thinking through ideas. Step by step the plans are beginning to take shape, gradually gaining coherence as well substance. Early days still but good progress.

Report on the start of a new film project series from Chekov Country

2011-08-24T14:04:00.002+03:00

These are the first steps of a new project. We have come out to the Russian Country side to start preparations in what could be called Chekhov Country or Russian Dacha country. Its a fitting location to start these projects which are about Russian Theatre in the late 19th and early twentieth century. The films will consist of two documentaries. One about Vahktangov and one about the role of carnival in Russian theatre of this period. Plus a feature type adaptation of Bloks play The Fairground Booth. For the next two or three weeks while We are here I will be writing and researching these projects and documenting them here in this blog and elsewhere. These films will follow on from the two films already completed about Russian Theatre “Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde” and “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre” to make up a series of films about the topic of Russian theatre of the early twentieth century. Using footage I will shoot out here I will try and give a flavour of life in the Russian countryside as well as documenting the start of this project.

"Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre" - Internet Distribution

2011-07-24T09:19:00.001+03:00

The release of “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre” is now a few months in the past and the process of distribution is now becoming more actual. There are a number of posibilities on the horizon but as yet its too early to talk about them until there is some kind of concrete proposal or development. For the time being there are two distribution outlets which are working quite well. The first is Amazon which most people know about. Here theDVD can be purchased or the film downloaded or rented. However the second is a new internet platform for film makers -Dynamo Player. It allows users to sell their film on the internet for a limited period of time for competitive rates. It also allows the film maker to add any amount of additional material associated with the film, for instance interviews background footage etc. which can add value to the original film and give the project a wider perspective. The player itself can be embedded on any web page or blog so feel free. There is now a dedicated web page for the Stanislavsky film where the extended interviews with Jean Benedetti (Honory Patron of The Stanislavski Centre) and Anatoly Smeliansky (Dean of the Moscow Art Theatre School). Here is the link: http://copernicusfilms.narod.ru/dynamostan1.html or click on the player below:

Click on the “playlist” to see all the options.

Plans are afoot for new projects and announcements will be made towards the end of the summer when the details are a bit more worked out.

Work on "Ogasawara" book close to completion

2011-06-25T22:17:00.000+03:00

Last few days quite subdued while taking stock and trying to develop ideas for new projects. A few days working on the last pieces of the book "Journey to Ogasawara" which is gradually taking shape and will be ready to be published as an e-book at first and then as a paperback as well. Am editing footage which was shot on Ogasawara as part of the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" but which wasn't included in the film itself. Quite a lot of material as it turns out. I am editing the farewell send off which is part of the island's tradition, a mixture of Japanese and it would seem Polynesian traditions. I need to add a few graphics and pictures and the e-book will be ready for publication.
Summer in Moscow is a quiet affair with many people leaving at weekends for their dachas so that their is a sensation of Moscow being emptied which on the one hand is a pleasant alternative to the usual frenzied pace which is a character of the city. However it is an eerie sensation all the same. Did some filming on the flip camera around the location for film on which I worked some years ago across the road from the Library of Foreign Literature not far from Taganka. Walked back from there to Kitae Gorod and back home on the metro.

Dosteovsky and a sunny Moscow day

2011-06-06T18:06:00.000+03:00

Last few days have been about development of new projects or at any rate thinking about this subject. That's not strictly true as some work has been going on.

Its a sunny day in Moscow and not much work is getting completed. Too many interruptions what with air conditioners breaking down and other trivia which has interrupted the work flow of the day.

Also reading Bakhtins book "The Poetics of Dostoevsky". Illuminates many elements of Dostoevsky's aesthetics with some surprising conclusions. Its remarkable how innovative Dostoevsky was despite the limitations and specific characteristics of his work. I have been reading Dostoevsky since I was fourteen years old and only now do I begin to really understand what a great author he was and what a departure his work was from Gogol and Tolstoy. Utterly different. Strange to talk about this author who explores some of the darker recesses of humanity on such a sunny bright day in Moscow.

Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre - interview with Anatoly Smeliansky on Hamlet (fragment)

2011-05-31T20:13:00.003+03:00

Return to Moscow

2011-05-17T22:24:00.000+03:00

A long time has passed, or so it seems, since completing the film "Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre" and a process of reflection has replaced the frenetic rush to finish the film in time for the premiere and get it released at roughly the same time. The premiere has been documented elsewhere and there is even a few clips which can be seen on YouTube. The film itself can be watched also on YouTube.

From the premiere of "Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre"

What kind of character this reflection is taking will become apparent with time. Having relaxed in the UK for a few weeks, coming back to the energetic pace of Moscow is always disorientating but certain elements are beginning to take shape. One thing that becomes clear is how out of control the process is despite the fact that you think you are controlling all the elements and progress. Its only after getting my head out of the editing process that the true significance of the film can be seen. Its too early as yet to make any confident conclusions or pronouncements. The most important thing for now is promoting the film. That is paramount at the moment and it requires a great deal of work and attention. In that sense many of the discussions which are taking place over the internet and elsewhere by such people as John Reiss , Ted Hope, Chris Jones and by independent film makers such as Oklahoma Ward and David Baker as well as many others are very apt. The divison between marketing your film and making a film in the new environment for independent film makers, is a fine line, if it exists at all.

One thing that can be said in this process is the effect that Moscow has on my work. Moscow can be a difficult place to live and work in. The noise, the climate, the traffic and the general lifestyle all combine to create obstacles and barriers etc. However for me and I know I have said this before, there is a specific energy or atmosphere which exists here and maybe in Russia generally which is creatively stimulating and galvanising.

Tomorrow I will be off to the Moscow State Duma to a friends Photo exhibition which is opening there tomorrow. More about that later.

Release of DVD “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre”

2011-05-12T10:31:00.000+03:00

Finally, after much tweaking and adjusting, the documentary film “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre” has been released on DVD after a successful launch and premiere at the Barn Theatre of the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performence. The premiere took place a few weeks ago but I will be posting information about the premiere and the film a little later. The film is available in both NTSC and PAL formats. Check your countrys’ broadcasting standard system and formats to see which is the correct one for your country.

Stanislavsky Film and Thinking Distribution

2011-03-13T10:30:00.006+02:00

Getting closer to finishing film "Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre". No major adjustments required but all the same a lot of work straightening out minor details and mistakes. All my time has been taken up with these tasks so I have had my head buried in the film, leaving no room for anything else. I showed a more or less complete version to Paul Fryer and Andrew Eglinton at The Stanislavski Centre. They have made some suggestions about marketing the film and pushing it and there are preliminary discussions about a showing of the film which would in effect be a premiere. They are looking into the possibilities of venues. Moscow is once again blanketed in snow after we thought that we had seen the end of it and spring had started.

In many ways I feel I am holding back until the film is absolutely ready before launching into marketing and promotion and articles about the film. I have a lot to say but I need to say it first in the film. Then we will see what happens. There is much talk these days of marketing your film and thinking about distribution and promotion well before the film goes into production and during the production. People like John Reiss, Ted Hope and Chris Jones and many others have been emphasising the need for this stage.

John Reiss proposes a special new post on a film specifically devoted to distribution and Internet marketing as part of the film production process. In many ways I am in complete agreement with them. However I still believe the film is the thing. That is not to say that I have not been actively engaged in this sphere. With this film I have teamed up with The Stanislavski Centre, which holds the biggest Stanislavsky archive in Europe, outside Russia and they have many connections and outlets in the world of theatre. I have a site devoted to Stanislavsky and theatre which is intended to be resource for the film to stimulate and promote interest.

However I agree with Seth Godin if I understand him correctly, when he says that in the end you have to create something which can be marketed and you have to get down and do that no matter what. The question in the context of a film is which bit drives the other. Does the marketing/promotion/audience gathering drive the film or does the film drive the marketing promotion/audience/gathering or is this a false dichotomy? As I said at the beginning there is a lot of things to say but the core is the film and I think that needs to be in focus all the time if you are trying to do all these things yourself simultaneously. Once the film is released I might have more to say about these aspects.

One of the things I want to do when this film is over is finish the book I have written "Journey to Ogasawara". The book is completed but just needs editing and put together for publication. All in all I have been thinking about writing more - trying to find more to time to write and dovetail it with the films I have been making.

Moscow Sunset

2011-02-17T20:06:00.000+02:00

Just caught this beautiful Moscow sunset from my window. This is the best time of winter in Moscow. High pressure cold days with clear skies. Working hard trying to finish Stanislavsky film for the end of February so this is an interesting and delightful diversion. Revising and refining the film over and over adding bits here and tweaking other bits as well as ironing out mistakes. All out effort to get finished and released on schedule.

Watch the video below.

Garbushka Day

2011-02-16T19:32:00.001+02:00

Two days of warm weather. I took the opportunity of heading off to the Garbushka electronic market in Moscow to check out the lastest gadgetry. Garbushka is a huge wharehouse complex with shops and stalls selling everything electronic or digital from DVDs to cameras to washing machines. Dissappointing sight, hardly any video cameras worth looking at. The venders seem to think that every one has switched over to DSLRs and maybe they are right. It looked like nobody was buying anything. I found a good camera store and had a look at the DSLR Canon 60d. Its worth checking out Phillip Bloom's review on this camera and other DSLR cameras if you are interested. If I was going to go down this route thats the one I would buy. Checked out some lights and green screens as well. I took the trollybus back home in the afternoon past the new Moscow City complex which is rising higher and higher with each passing week. Dark gashes of green brown water beginning to appear in the ice on the Moscow River as the mild weather starts to take effect. Toying with some film ideas. Later got into the edit of "Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre". Good progress and carried on with it today. A major stage in the editing of this film is now complete.

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

2011-02-14T14:45:00.004+02:00

Moscow winters tend to become very monochrome in every sense of the word. When you stare out of the window everything looks like a black and white Japanese painting, all misty swirls and opaque brushstrokes. Today is one such day. The steam pouring out from the tall chimneys of electric power stations around Moscow adds a misty mystery to the atmosphere as the vapour drifts in copious clouds across the horizon. I'm not sure what long periods of such conditions do to the human psyche - perhaps I'm better off not knowing, especially after fifteen years as a resident.

To go out in -10 with a freezing wind blowing billowing snow off the north east or where ever, is not a pleasant prospect and most sane people avoid it. So what to do. No problem. Firstly I am writing this new blog. This I hope will be an occasional series of pieces or chronicles about a film makers life in Moscow and occasionally just the life of a simple human being who happens to live in Moscow.

Generally however the perspective will be from film making because that is what I do - make films in Russia and from time to time in other places as well - Japan for instance in 2009. As yet I am not sure exactly what shape this blog will take and how the content will develop but it is likely to have a more personal tone with simple and maybe even mundane reflections. However as the artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko once wrote. "Our task in photography is to make the extraordinary appear mundane and the mundane appear extraordinary". Such a philosophy can unearth unexpected and rich deposits of knowledge and insight. So taking this as my starting point, off we go.

Progress with Stanislavsky

2011-02-08T21:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was good day for editing even with winter biting in the way that it is in Moscow. Not being able or wanting to go out can be a positive experience. It gives me plenty of opportunity for editing and working on our present project "Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre" . For one reason or another I needed to spend Sunday around the Tverskoi Bulvar area of Moscow. I decided to shoot some footage around this area as it is associated with the theatrical history of Moscow and visually features in the theatrical archives. The snow had stopped for a while and it was not so cold. The light was perfect for what I had in mind. Soft and muted, giving a vaguely fuzzy and paradoxically warm tone to the images.
Waiting to receive the second part of the narration for the film from the actor James Langton. After a bit of going backwards and forwards until we settled on a final version. Once this is complete then we will go through the final part of the narration and then should be set for sound mixing. There were some problems with the syntax of the script but these hopefully have been ironed out.
Using After Effects to animate an old Moscow engraving or picture of a snow scene on Tverskaya, the main street which leads down to the Kremlin. It is a quintessential winter scene form old Moscow and if it works it will be a very effective piece of animation for the film. From this I have been able to work out a sequence using other engravings and integrating them with footage I have shot already and footage I will be shooting in the near future once the weather lets up a bit.

"Faces of Moscow" Photographic exhibition in Moscow

2011-02-01T21:35:00.001+02:00

The snow is starting to melt as the days become warmer here in Moscow. All day the "alpenists" have been nosily clearing snow and ice from the roof of our apartment block. A long day with not a great deal to show for itself in many ways although our Japanese lesson always makes us feel good. Learning Japanese through Russian is a unique experience but I prefer it. It keeps my language skills sharp. At the moment working hard on the editing for"Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre". Its gradually coming together and hopefully I will hit the end of February deadline.
Yesterday visited a friends exhibition of photographs at the House of Journalist in Moscow. Slava Sachkov exhibited together with the photo journalist Sergie Shevtzov a series of photographs reflecting Russian life and people. Slava has photographed the portraits of many of Russia's most influential cultural figures including Solzhenitzyn. We have worked together on various occasions and I am glad to say he was the camera operator on two of the films in the series about the Russian avant-garde - "Mayakovsky" and "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde" Therefore its a real pleasure to see his work exhibited at this major exhibition in Moscow.
Below is a selection from the exhibition.
Poster for exhibition "Faces of Russia"

Work and More Work

2011-01-26T21:25:00.002+02:00

Worked late into the evening and night on the film"Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre" I've been trying to get the first section right. If I can do this then most of the film will follow. Concentrating on the music sound track and the opening chords to the film which are both visual and musical and give a feeling of the atmosphere of Moscow at night.

Metro very quiet - a definite absence of the usual bustle and crowds which is its main feature these days. Seems like many people avoiding travelling after the recent events, tense and subdued.

Today bright and sunny but very cold. I noticed last night on my way home that the sky was clear and the air super crisp which denoted fine weather for the following day. Its my favourite time of the year in Moscow, in winter that is.

Will work more today on the film. Also working on background material for the film which will widen out the scope of the subject and be useful additional information to go with the film. This is my intention. That is to offer a range of supporting material in association with the film - the full interviews, articles, sites where information about Stanislavsky and Russian theatre in general. This will be in conjunction with The Stanislavsky Centre in London at the Rose Bruford College of Performance and Actingand the London Theatre Blog. In this way the squidoo site is very useful with its lenses and stuff which I am getting to know how to use. It offers an additional hub to theCopernicus Films web site and at the same time links with the web and other social media platforms. I like the way its is set up. At first I wasn't sure about it but recent improvements have made it a useful instrument in collating and disseminating information about the work. I like the way it breaks down modules into specific subjects and groups them together.

Moscow in Mist

2011-01-25T21:41:00.000+02:00

Moscow has been covered in a mantle of mist for the last few days. Yesterday I walked from my apartment down to he embankment of the Moscow river, past the Ukraine Hotel (Now the Raddisson), and the White House on up towards the curved bridge which carries the metro across the river like some fairground attraction every two minutes. I turned back to look at the new Moscow City complex, the peaks of the tallest buildings shrouded in a thick mist like something from a Chinese monochrome mountain landscape painting. Cars swished by in the slush left by the melting snow and as a result of the mild weather conditions. As I was near to the Museum of the East I called into a friend who works there and we talked for an hour or so, both glad that the long holiday is finally over and we can get back to work. I came home later grateful to get back into my work on a film about Stanislavsky - "Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre".

3D Visions at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

2011-01-17T21:11:00.000+02:00

An exhibition, 3D Visions, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is an exploration of the practice of giving flat images the illusion of depth. 3D is the new by word in film making and this article casts a new light on this phenomena. I read an article about the exhibition which prompted some new thoughts on the subject which hadn't occurred to me before. 3D could become a way of exploring new visual and compositional possibilities in film making. The following quote from the curator of the museum, Junya Yamamine is particularly apt and revealing in this context. "that filmmakers are striving to make 3D an expression of a "world view" rather than just stringing together cheap visual thrills". The next step, he says, is for creators literate in the technology to develop new forms of expression. As a film maker this is one of the first sensible things I have heard out about how to use and develop this format. Rather than being afraid of this technology film makers ought to learn how to use it to extend their expressive possibilities whether it is in film, animation or trans-media projects. The expression "world view" in relation to 3D is especially intriguing and I would have liked Junya Yamamine to have enlarged on what he had in mind by such an expression. For my own part I am interested in the philosophical possibilities of film purely as a medium of expression, that is the ability of film to reveal or disclose a truth not necessarily in a narrative form but as a conceptual entity. Instead of trying to fit 3D into our pre conceived ideas of story telling maybe we should give it free rein to reveal its own interior power. This exhibition seems to be an attempt to do this albeit in the realm of photography.
You can read the full article here:
http://arts-extra.ft.com/articles/visual/5a37a162-2004-11e0-a6fb-00144feab49a

St Petersburg Origins

2011-01-15T21:31:00.001+02:00

In the early 1990s Russia changed its political system radically and the Soviet system of government was replaced in favour of a new political path with aspirations to democratise its institutions along western lines and economic models of capitalism. A lot has happenedsince that time. I mention it here as I was in Russia at that time for nearly four months, in St Petersburg in fact, working on a film for the BBC. My experience during that time had a huge bearing on what I am doing at the moment which is making films and how I am doing it.

While in St Petersburg in 1993 I was introduced to an English guy called Adam Alexander or maybe Alexander Adams I cant quite remember.He had set up as a producer come distributor in the city. He had bought a largish apartment and I was invited around to meet him on one of my few days off during the production. Adam was a tall blond guy with a naive welcoming smile and manner, lively and generous with his personality and keen to get to know people. He showed me around the apartment and in one room he had a whole editing suite set up. A moviola was set up in one corner and abetacam editing suite set up in another part of the large room. I was fascinated by the whole operation in this romantic and phantasmagorical city. It had never occurred to me that you could set up an editing suite and production operation in an apartment. Now of course with computers and non linear editing everyone is doing it. However it was then that I decided I would live in Moscow and have a similar studio set up in an apartment at some time. It was a dream and I didn't really believe it myself but one which some years later has come to be. As I sit here looking out across a wintry night in Moscow from my 7th floor apartment with a couple of computers making up a the backbone of an editing suite with extra screens for monitoring and so on.

After I lived in Moscow for some time and it came time to buy an apartment we looked for somewhere in the centre and quite large so that it could double as a studio and a place to live. That way I felt it was a more economically workable investment. We knocked down a few walls during the renovation so that the apartment could double as a living space and a studio.For more complicated technical operations there is a studio not 10 minutes away which I can use whenever I need to.

The Museum of the East in Moscow

2010-12-27T14:46:00.000+02:00

The rain came to Moscow on Christmas day, melting the snow briefly before freezing into sheets of ice as smooth as glass on the streets and pavements. The trees turned into glass like sculptures as the water expanded into a transparent coat of thick ice, covering the branches in a brittle quick-silvery casing. Some trees have collapsed with the sheer weight of the ice. Many will struggle to recover when the ice melts having been denied oxygen for so long, unable to breath. No one remembers such a phenomena in Moscow and I certainly for all my years here cannot recall seeing such a thing, so beautiful and yet so damaging.

Natasha spent four days tending her exhibition of Ikebana at the Moscow State Museum of the east in association with a Japanese artist who makes collage paintings with flower and plant material. I had to be there on hand as it were for emergencies and moral support.

The operator and director Slava Sachkov came to the exhibition with his wife Olga. A friend for many years in Moscow and camera operator on the film "Mayakovsky" and"Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde", he had just returned from Vietnam for the ninth time. He is lecturing at a film school in Saigon and in seems to be single-handed helping to revive the Vietnamese film industry or so it seems to me. He stayed for a few hours and he talked about his work there and some of the visit he made to Hanoi.

With time on my hands after Slava and Olga left, I wondered around the Museums labyrinth halls. The collection is is housed in the remains of a pre revolutionary classical building which had previously been the home of the Lunin family, whose most famous son Mikhail was a soldier, a poet and one of the leaders of the Decembrist movement. Its ornate pillared halls with 6 meter ceilings still retain their imperial grandeur of those far off days. I wandered alone most of the time through the muted interiors which house the different collections: The Iranian collection of paintings and cloths, swords and armour and costumes, the inheritance from another empire: the Chinese gallery with its scrolls and hundreds of sculpted ornaments and figures made from ivory, jade and other rare stone material. Two galleries are devoted to Japanese art. In one hall there is a row of beautiful engravings on one side and a series of calligraphy scrolls on the other wall. The centre piece in a huge glass case is a metre high ivory eagle in pose with wings outstretched as if to take flight.

As I walked by the mute exhibits, I tried to imagine if the pre revolutionary inhabitants ever imagined that there home would one day house a museum. The ghostly silence of each hall seemed to suggest they had not anticipated such a fate but were nonetheless content that the house was still standing and of benefit to the thousands of visitors who pass through these halls to witness Russia's intimate connection to the East.

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

2010-12-18T21:39:00.000+02:00

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

16th December 2010 - Every Cloud

2010-12-17T21:06:00.002+02:00

Out in Moscow on a cold December morning trying to pick up medicine for the flu which everyone here is suffering from. 9.30 AM on VDNX, the Moscow region a district which served as an exhibition centre for the technological, scientific and cultural achievements of the USSR. Each republic had its own building in the complex which stretched across tens of acres. It was a kind of showcase for everything the USSR felt proud of. It was built during the Stalin period and added to in the Brezhniev era. Now it is a vast market place for selling and exhibiting the newest capitalist products from the west.

I can never seem to get my bearings when when I exit from the metro on VDNX. Fortunately Natasha had given me good directions and I exited from the metro entrance into the wintry, misty sunlit expanse that is Moscow. As Natasha had promised the raised highway was on my right and the hilly open ground topped by an orthodox church was on my left. It was the church which attracted my attention, its reddish brick exterior and onion domes were not unlike any other church of comparable size and character which can be found in Russia. However it was bathed in winter sunlight which descended through the misty cloud cover, revealing it in an ephemeral light which was only dimly reflected up from the snow covered expanse of ground which surrounds the church. My reaction was immediate and clear. This scene would fit neatly into the Stanislavsky film"Stanislavsky and Russian Theatre". I made a mental note to myself to return on a similar day with similar weather conditions and film the scene. It has since been added to the list of locations for the film.

Light at the end of the tunnel. Film updates

2010-09-16T19:54:00.000+03:00

Autumn - Moscow. The dark evenings come earlier and earlier with every passing day. Coming to the end of the edit on The Japanese Garden - Landscape and Meaning. Still not entirely happy with the title. However I don't want anything to prosaic which might be misleading. Writing something which will introduce the film as a kind of announcement of release. Work has piled up behind this film including The Stanislavsky Documentary film "Stanislavsky and the Metamorphosis of Russian Theatre" and some related writing projects which I am working on. There is no other way however to make progress otherwise the quality of the film suffers if you try and rush things. Today manged to get to grips with and complete some computer graphics and effects which have been giving me difficulties. I feel like I haven't been out for days although this is not true. The feeling with this film is that I have been ensconced in a long tunnel neither looking right or left and despite the pleasure and experience I have derived from this film I really want to get it finished and move forward with other projects.

I tried to contact the Utsunumiyo Museum in Japan with regard to selling the film "Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde" as part of their exhibition "Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova". Its was difficult to negotiate with them but I will ask Akira Suzuki to help with the negotiations.

TAB Event - Aleksandr Rodchenko + Varvara Stepanova "Visions of Constructivism"

2010-09-15T11:26:00.006+03:00

TAB Event - Aleksandr Rodchenko + Varvara Stepanova "Visions of Constructivism"

Starts in 4 days
At Utsunomiya Museum of Art
Media: Graphics, Painting

On display are 170 works by Aleksandr Rodchenko from the collection of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

[Image: Aleksandr Rodchenko (1924, 1965) collection of the Pushkin Museum]

Schedule

From 2010-09-19 To 2010-11-07

Artist(s)

Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova et al.

Website

http://u-moa.jp/ (Japanese) (venue's website)

Fee

Adults ¥800, University & High School Students ¥600, Junior High and Elementary School Students ¥400

Venue Hours

From 9:30 To 17:00
Closed on Mondays
Note:On a Public Holiday Monday, the museum is open but closed on the following Tuesday.

Maps

Navitime (Japanese)
Yahoo (Japanese)

Access

25 minutes by bus from West exit at the JR Utsunomiya station or 20 minutes by taxi from the JR Utsunomiya station.

Address

1077 Nagaoka-cho, Utsunomiya-shi, Tochigi-ken 320-0004
Phone: 028-643-0100 Fax: 028-643-0895

When you visit, why not mention you found this event on Tokyo Art Beat?

Thoughts from St Petersburg

2010-09-12T20:39:00.002+03:00

Just returned from St Petersburg for 24 hours shooting an interview for a private client. Excellent footage. The last time I was in St Petersburg was 1993 on the film Grushko. We were there slightly longer (3-4 months) at that time. Now the whole atmosphere has changed. Much more lively and open although a lot less stressful than Moscow. Travelled up on the new high speed express railway. Fantastic experience, better than air travel. Everything went well just a shame couldn't stay longer.

Revisiting St Petersburg after all this time and essentially returning as a film maker whereas before I was working on somebody else's production, has given me food for thought. The question that is exercising me the most is marketing my films - those which are already complete and those which will be available over the coming months. For instance I am putting the finishing touches to "The Japanese Garden - Art, Landscape and Meaning". A film, which as its title suggests, will explore the artistic and philosophical meaning of Japanese gardens. As soon as this is ready I will be straight onto another project which is also in post production "Stanislavsky and the Metamorphosis of Russian Theatre. The problem I am finding is coordination of the marketing of this material across the Internet. It really is a full time activity in itself but an absolutely key component of film making and is becoming more so. I have a number of sites and blogs etc across social networks and need to draw them together into some kind of coherent strategy or at least align them along some strategy which I actually don't have as yet.

One idea I have had for the release of "The Japanese Garden - Art, Landscape and Meaning" is to simultaneously publish an e-book in monthly instalments, recounting the 2 three month shoots in Japan which went into the making of the film. This I think will help promote the film, provide background information to the subject as well as adding an extra dimension to the whole project.

Chekhov Country - Hot and hardly visible

2010-08-12T20:06:00.000+03:00

Returned from the Russian countryside after almost three weeks. Not exactly a place of Chekhovian atmospheres and moods. Such things are hard to find nowadays in the Russian countryside but with wild fires billowing in the hot summer wind and temperatures of up to 40 degrees, those lazy dreaming Russian summers seem like a thing of the long distant past. Which is something Chekhov was already hinting at in The Cherry Orchard. We left Moscow as the heat started to become unbearable and headed out to a an old soviet style holiday rest complex. It was built as a Pioneer camp for soviet school children but has been converted into a kind of holiday complex for adults. There we escaped the worst of the smog and smoke from the fires. I took the main computer with me and was able to get a considerable amount of work done especially on the Stanislavsky Film "Stanislavsky and the Metamorphosis of Russian Theatre". The script is more or less fleshed out and ready for recording. I have a good narrator in mind, James Langton, an English actor who lives in New York. He has just completed the narration for the other film I have in post production "The Japanese Garden - Art, Landscape and Meaning". The title may appear elsewhere under a different variation until I can settle on a version that I am happy with. James delivered the final text with the corrections I had requested and I can now start to complete the film. Excellent narrator of text and I am very happy with the result. I will work on "Stanislavsky and Metamorphosis" parallel with the Japanese film. Now back in Moscow and coping with the unendurable heat.

Moscow Streets - Prelude to a film series.

2010-07-03T17:25:00.000+03:00

In order to understand what its like to film in Moscow or just be in Moscow, on the streets, squares and boulevards, one needs to get a feel of the atmosphere in Moscow in those early days of 1995. Its very different now, garishly neon lit cityscape's which have displaced the dark dusty streets and yards which existed at that time. It was said that up to perestroika you could walk from one end of Moscow to another without having to cross a road. You simply moved form one courtyard to another. I would walk around Moscow for days on end sometimes as I had little else to do in that early time when I hardly knew anybody. The winter dust of early March blew around my cheeks and filled my nose with a fine stinging compound, thick in its icy consistency. The snow had all melted away but the cold air contained the eroded particles from a city that was busily fending off decay as best it could and as it still does, although now the resources are more adequate for building glass and stone monsters which are rising sheer into the Moscow skies. I walked back from a trip to the supermarket "Three Fat Men" with a miserable depressive gait, absorbing the sight of yellow and cracked masonry and dull chipped black railings of the low buildings which had been unable to endure the winter and seemed to sag under layer upon layer of winter silt left behind by the melted snow. The grey and heavy weather added to the muted atmosphere. No clouds overhead, simply a misty canopy, more like rising steam than clouds. But in all this was Moscow's heavy beauty which could bear down on ones consciousness like a cruel mistress. However this benumbing beauty was only one facet of the whole edifice, and I can show you other facets. For the time being it was all I could see and feel and it left me with an aching wonder at the enormity of the grinding vision which was opening up before me seeming to surround me with a phantasmagorical landscape of sweet deterioration which I loved all the more for its air of decay and bleakness. This was not the dream of most of Moscow's residents. They aspired to other visions of Moscow, lighter and gentler but at that time, wrapped in its post perestroika mantel, it was the reality for most of the inhabitants of Moscow and for me.

Interview with Michael Craig guest speaker on Voice of Russia discussing the 32nd Moscow Film Festival

2010-07-02T07:54:00.010+03:00

Guest Speaker → The best Moscow Film Festival ever, the 32nd

Estelle Winters

Click on picture or link below to listen
http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/2249225/10595720/

On June 24th Michael Craig was interviewed,discussing the 32nd Moscow Film Festival on Radio Voice of Russia with Estelle Winters, as well as his own film, "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde" which is being shown as part of the exhibition "100 Years of Performance" at the Garage gallery in Moscow.

The Moscow Garage and Meyerhold Film -Reprise

2010-06-26T12:27:00.013+03:00

Excellent news about the film "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde". The film has been selected as part of the "100 years of performance" in Moscow along with films by Yoko Ono and other film makers, which is being held at the Garage in Moscow. The exhibition is a 100 year history of theatre using film and video installations.The Garage is a new venue for modern art in Moscow. It is a converted bus garage which was designed by the grat Russian avant-garde architect and artist Konstantin Melnikov. The exhibition will run from June until September 2010. We filmed there some years ago for the film Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde. At that time it was still a working garage so it was interesting to see how they have converted the building for use as an art gallery. The model it seems to me is the Tate Modern in London but on a smaller scale. There are two other main exhibitions; Mark Rothko which has an excellent range of Rothko's work and also The Feast of Trimalchio by AES+F also a film/video installation on a grand scale. The exhibition was first featured in New York last year where "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde" was shown. Gratifying to see it in my (now) home town of Moscow where I can get to see it myself. have a look at the excert below.

Stanslavsky Documentary Film - Copernicus Films - Update

2010-05-16T13:57:00.003+03:00

Just back from the UK after accomplishing several important steps in the progress of this new documentary film about Stanislavsky of his life and work. The one major accomplishment was securing the interview with Jean Benedetti, one of the foremost international authorities on Stanislavsky, which will be included as part of the film. After a period of negotiation the interview took place with Jean Benedetti at the beginning of May 2010. Instrumental to this process was the help of Paul Fryer of the Rose Bruford College of acting and Andrew Eglinton also from Rose Bruford College and who runs The London Theatre Blog. Paul Fryer is also curator of The Stanislavsky Centre which houses one of the largest Stanislavsky archives outside of Russia and is a major resource for research into Stanislavsky. Andrew made sure that the logistics side of things were in place as well as playing a main role in the recording sessions which took place at Rose Bruford College and advice about archive material. On returning to Moscow the production will continue with more filming and locations in Moscow as well as negotiations for archive footage. Post production and editing for the film is planned for the middle of June and will continue throughout the summer.

Stanislavsky Film

2010-04-15T13:02:00.022+03:00

On Monday in Moscow Copernicus Films managed to complete an important interview for the up and coming documentary film about Stanislavsky's life and work in theatre. Anatoly Smeliansky, the rector of the Moscow Arts Theatre School, kindly agreed to be interviewed and give his thoughts for a documentary film about the Russian theatre director Stansilavsky which will be released later in 2010. The film is in the final stages of pre production. Next week we will travel to the UK in order to record the voice over and a further interview with an eminent figure and writer on Stansilavsky in the English language. The film is being made with the cooperation of the Rose Bruford college of acting and the Stanislavsky Centre which is one of the largest archives of Stansilavsky outside of Russia. The Stansilavsky centre has made the archive available to Copernicus Films for use in the film.

If you wish to be kept up to date with the progress of this project subscribe below to the mailing list and receive a 30% discounted copy of the film "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde" plus updates and other free downloads to be announced.

News about Copernicus Films work in progress

2010-02-06T15:35:00.006+02:00

Its a long time since I have written anything here and I feel like I am letting people down and myself down so here is an update of what has been happening lately and what is likely to happen soon. Basically I have been continuing work on the two Japanese films in some earnest and have got them to a point where I will be able to go to the UK to record the voice overs. This will tie in with another project which I have been working on about Russian theatre. Its a completely new project which is taking up a great deal of time but I think it is worth it because it involves the collaboration of a well known acting college in London (More later). That will be coming up in April but at the moment I am still down to writing the script and researching the material. Arranging interviews is on the cards in the next few weeks or so. The film will require probably three interviews. I will also have to get some more archive material from the archive in Krasnogorsk which is a little way outside Moscow. It requires some tricky negotiation with the administration there but that's another story. In addition to all of that there is continuous editing going on with the two Japanese films.(I hope to have titles sometime soon so I can stop calling them "the two Japanese films". Talking about Japan, just to mention there was a superb conference this week for three days about Japanese culture and art here in Moscow. Eighteen speakers on a variety of subjects from mandalas, to contemporary Japanese art. Confirmed many of my researches and it added to my pool of knowledge about Japan.

The Beginning of the Series "The Russian Avant-garde"

2009-12-10T15:17:00.002+02:00

Where did the series about the Russian Avant-garde begin, is a question I am asked from time to time. I had been working as a consultant for a documentary film company in Russia advising them about foreign distribution for their films. It was during this time especially that I learnt about making films in Russia. I had worked on feature films in Russia before, for instance "Grushko" in St Petersburg, and two other films in Moscow, ending with "The Stringer" Participating in these projects gave me some rich experiences and significant insights into film making in Russia. The work with the documentary film company, however, gave me some real hands on experience of working in Russian studios and some good contacts which encouraged me to start making my own films. I wasn't sure at first what to make films about, which subjects to tackle so to speak and then by chance I heard about an exhibition of the Costakis collection in Moscow. Costakis collected paintings and works of art from avant-garde artists of the 20s and 30s who largely left Russia and tried to eke out an existence in the various capitals of Europe. After the war Costakis travelled around Russia and Europe collecting these paintings, sometimes picking them up for 50 dollars or a bottle of wine or so legend would have it. In a word he singlehandedly rescued hundreds and hundreds of paintings to amass what became a priceless collection of avant-garde works which he donated to the Russian State.

In the beginning Costakis collected the Masters of the Dutch School of Landscape Painters but modernist works by Picasso and Matisse soon fell within his field of vision. In 1946 he came across three paintings in a Moscow studio by Olga Rozanova . He described how, in the dark days after the war these brightly coloured paintings of the lost Avant-Garde: "were signals to me. I did not care what it was... but nobody knew what anything was in those days".So struck by the powerful visual effect of the strong colour and bold geometric design which spoke directly to the senses, that he became determined to rediscover the Suprematist and Constructivist art which had been lost and forgotten in the attics, studios and basements of Moscow and Leningrad. He hunted for pictures which had been 'lost', some that were rolled up and covered with dust. He met Vladimir Tatlin and befriended Varvara Stepanova. He tracked down friends of Kasimir Malevich and bought works by Lubov Popova and Ivan Kliun. He particularly admired Anatoly Zverev, Russian expressionist whom he met in the 50's. Costakis said about Zverev "it was a source of great happiness for me to come into contact with this wonderful artist, and I believe him to be one of the most talented artists in Soviet Russia."

By the 1960 George Costakis' apartment in Moscow had become a place for international art collectors and art lovers in general to meet and exchange ideas and opinions, as some called it, Russia's unofficial Museum of Modern Art. The same year Costakis, with his family, left the Soviet Union and moved to Greece , but he agreed that he should leave 50 per cent of his collection in the State Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow. In 1997 the Greek State bought the 1275 works and they are now part of the permanent collection of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, in Thessaloniki, Greece.

It was this story which first inspired me to make a film. The passionate quest of Costakis, I believed, would make an excellent documentary film. I became even more convinced after I saw the exhibition of his collection in Moscow some time in 1998. It seemed to me that there was something unique and intriguing in the geomtrical and abstract colours and shapes. They seemed to have a dynamism and energy which I had not encountered anywhere else or in any other artistic tradition. However the logistics for the film failed to gain any traction. All the same I still continued to research the subject of the Russian Avant-garde and as part of these researches I came across Alexander Rodchenko, the painter and photographer. People often asked me why in particular Rodchenko became the first film I made. “Why Rodchenko?” they would say. There were two basic reasons which attracted me to the idea of making a film about Rodchenko. Firstly Rodchenko abandoned painting altogether to take up photography. Easel painting is dead he maintained, only the camera can reflect the social and visual realities which were emerging at that time. It was this idea of a painter almost violently going against his own art which I thought would make a good film. The second reason is that Rodchenko’s experiments in art and photography helps establish a working visual grammar for anybody undertaking a film especially if it is ones first serious film. "The visually coherent "look" which the film has was already present in Rodchenko photographs. His understanding of the compositional values in any image, such as volume, contrast, depth, balance, proportion etc is a perfect introduction to any film maker. One other point which is worth making is that Rodchenko saw Moscow not as a place to live and work but as a territory for study, that is a space exploring new visual and aesthetic frontiers. He would walk around Moscow photographing the new buildings and objects appearing on the streets, finding new angles and perspectives to illuminate the mundane and make the spectacular commonplace. As I followed in his footsteps, literally, I got an excellent "feel" for the material. Moscow no longer remained a bleak, cold and alien environment I had experienced when I first arrived but a city with immense visual and creative possibilities.

Guggenheim on its 50th anniversary and Kandinsky Film

2009-09-09T21:24:00.022+03:00

Kandinsky, a full-scale retrospective of the visionary artist, theorist, pioneer of abstract art, and seminal figure in the history of the Guggenheim Museum will be presented from September 18, 2009, to January 13, 2010. This exhibition is organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, in cooperation with the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. The film "Kandinsky and the Russian House" was released in 2007 and has featured as part of the Kandinsky exhibitions in Germany and at the Pompidou centre in Paris. It gives me great pleasure that the film will be associated with the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim especially as Kandinsky served as an inspiration for the foundation of this great museum. This retrospective will bring together more than 100 paintings drawn primarily from these three institutions, whose collections make up the three largest repositories of Kandinsky in the world, as well as from significant private and public collections. A DVD of "Kandinsky and the Russian House" will be on sale at the exhibition and can be purchased at the Guggenheim shop in New York

When I was in Germany filming "Kandinsky and the Russian House" I was invited by a director friend, Peter Goedel who lived in Munich, to the film festival which was going at the time of filming. I had met Peter at another film festival in Toronto a year or so earlier and this meeting was one reason why I decided to go ahead and make a film about Kandinsky. Peter's superb film "Tangier -Legend of a City" won three awards at Toronto and it was he who invited me to Munich when he heard that I was thinking of making a film about Kandinsky.

When I mentioned Kandinsky at the Munich Film Festival, people often talked about him as if he was a quasi European painter in the Matisse or impressionist mould and didn't seem enthusiastic about acknowledging that Kandinsky was Russian at all. However if you look at Kandinsky's work, the light that he found even in Southern Bavaria is very similar to a Russian light, the light of the Steppe. This is true I believe of even the most abstract of his paintings. Even as I look out of my window on a bright sunny Moscow morning I see Kandinsky's colours and light everywhere. Anybody who has spent a long period of time in Russia will, in my opinion recognise this. The Argentinian and Irish artist Carmen Casey, who lived in Moscow for more than six years, commented to me that one of the difficulties she found about working in Moscow when she first arrived, was the sheer intensity of the light (on a sunny day of course) which she wasn't used to and had never encountered befere. When I tried to explain this to people they would look at me blankly while I rambled on about my theories, especially the one that Kandinsky is the quintessential Russian painter. As he himself said, "Moscow is the tuning fork for all my painting". And that is despite the fact that Kandinsky spent many years in all the European centres of artistic excellence of that time; Munich, Paris and finally Berlin at the Bauhaus. He always, I believe, returned artistically to his Russian roots . Why did he leave Russia it might be asked. In some ways it doesn't make sense to ask such a question. Every artist must continuously expand their horizons and seek inspiration by travelling and through studying other cultures. Kandinsky came from a section of Russian society who would have been familiar with all the philosophical and cultural trends of Europe as well as Russia and would have been drawn to Europe as a result. However, the fact that Kandinsky no longer painted in Russia and had moved to Europe made him no more a European painter and no less a Russian painter.
Where ever artists find themselves they always see the world with their own eyes and interpret what they see from their own inner understanding.
An other factor here is the eastern influence in European painting which at that time was not such a strange thing as one might imagine. The collector of Central Asian Ikats or multi coloured robes,Tair Tairov, believes that the abstract patterns of these textiles and robes inspired a generation of artists in Europe. Picasso, Mattisse, Whistler and many others were all influnced one way or another by eastern art in particular Japanese art. It could be said that eastern art with its emphasis on the abstract was a componatnt part of the rise of abstract art in Europe and America. Kandinsky apparantely himself remarks how these multi-coloured robes infleunced his artistic development.

The film "Kandinsky and the Russian House" was released in 2007 and is part of a series of 6 films about the Russian Avant-garde.

What's been happening back in Moscow

2009-07-12T11:22:00.004+03:00

Already a month since we have returned from Japan. The backlog of business was formidable even though I tried to deal with a much as I could while we were on the road in Japan. Reasonably successful dealing with most things but all the same the sheer volume of tasks was overwhelming once we arrived back in Moscow. I had made a conscious decision to try and hit the ground running and get straight back into editing as soon as possible and that more or less worked out. Just getting back into the rhythm of Moscow life is a task in itself but then I have plenty of experience.

Its time to really take stock of what was the outcome of the whole Japan trip. The first thing to say is that we achieved at least 95% of the goals we set our selves plus an extra 20% of other goals which were fulfilled through the chances and opportunities thrown up by simply being in Japan for such an extended period. Ultimately these things aren't quantifiable in any meaningful sense but it gives some idea of scale. For instance after visiting Oshima with Akira Suzuki and meeting the curator of the Island Museum in memory of Gomo Kimuro we decided to interview both of them and the connections they have with the Island and its culture.I hadn't really intended this, I really just wanted to look at the Island and film a bit especially as David Burliuk spent time there painting with his family. It unclear how to use this material but there are various possibilities which are worth pursuing.

As for the main task in hand, that is the two films about Japanese art which are in progress (One traditional one contemporary), the material which we have shot and coupled with the extensive research we were able to complete in Japan have broadened and given depth to a project which was already at a well developed stage. The situation as it stands now is that I have to extend the post production stage for a much longer period than I expected but in the long run it will be of over all benefit to the project.

At the moment its too early to reveal the substance of the films in question simply to say that they will concentrate on Japanese art seen from an unusual perspective and contemporary art in Japan. The films will be linked thematically so that from time to time there will be a seamless crossover from one film to the other but at the same time the two films will stand alone as separate entities and can be viewed as such. Editing is progressing at a slow but steady pace and unfortunately you can't rush these things, its laborious,time consuming but rewarding. Time will tell.

The Avant-garde series is selling well in most outlets. The Pompidou centre in Paris ordered more discs and negotiating with Guggenheim about Kandinsky film.

Winding Down

2009-06-27T11:34:00.005+03:00

Just a few days left before we leave Tokyo. We extended our stay by ten days in order to fit everything in and even with that we wont get everything done. I have shot almost everything I wanted and research wise covered an immense amount of ground. However fatigue is setting in. Constantly on the move and organising each stage of our programme without any back up infrastructure takes its toll. Not that I'm complaining, that's how I wanted it. Even during my time working on feature films in Europe and Africa before becoming an independent film maker the sense of fatigue in yourself and others usually became apparent after about six weeks into a shoot. We were in Russia for four months in the early nineties so its possible to imagine how people felt after that length of time.The director shot the last few weeks from a wheelchair closely followed by the first assistant director. It was a disconcerting sight to see them both being wheeled around the set but working perfectly normally otherwise. This is different of course, when you are doing things for yourself you can set the pace that you want and the demands of being attached to a large crew with 20-30 actors at one time are a far cry from what I am doing now.

Hakone

2009-05-16T07:17:00.007+03:00

After we got back from Nikko it was just a few days before gearing up for Hakone. In between times I did more filming in Tokyo as well as a unique park outside Tokyo. The evening before we were to go To Hakone we met with Akira Suzuki and I outlined an idea I have had for a supplementary film and discussed the idea of doing more interviews with him for this new film.

The next day w boarded a bus early in the morning which took us out to the Hakone region where Mount Fuji is located. I needed some good shots of this feature for the film. When I woke up and looked out the window torrential rain was falling and the forecast was that it would continue all day. Not a good start as this type of weather would insure that Mount Fuji would be hidden in cloud. We had decided to take a normal tour to the mountain which meant enduring a continual commentary from the guide, although I have to admit she was a good guide as far as it goes, its just we had different goals from a tourist who was in japan for the first time. I chose this method of traveling because there was no way we would get up Mount Fuji otherwise. Also I knew that the next day we would be free to wonder all over the Hakone area unhindered and the tour gave us some good deals on local transport plus as it turned out a first rate hotel with stunning views of the lake and mountains.

When we got to mount Fuji, the rain had in fact stopped but as i expected the whole mountain was shrouded in mist. Occasionally there would be break here and there but it wasn't working at all. Nonetheless the feeling of being halfway up sch a magnificent natural feature was palpable and I we felt the full force of the incredible sight of the snow peaked volcanic mountain. Beautifully formed, if the weather had been better it might have felt like just a illusory few short steps to the top. Even though we were surrounded by snow at the fifth station, as its called it didn't feel cold. A half an hour was all we got and then it was back on the bus and down the mountain for lunch. Then out to Hakone. It took about another hour and a half to get to the lake which is in fact a collapsed volcano crater.Everyone was bundled into a cable car at the foot of some mountain and we started an assent. Suddenly there it was. The weather had cleared and mount Fuji appeared in all its glory as if floating like and island in a sea of clouds. I knew the next day was going to be clear and sunny so I would get some good footage anyway but the emotional intensity of the view was worth the wait.

We descended to the lake again and we thankfully parted company with our guide and the rest of the group and were taken by a shuttle to the hotel was a couple minutes drive away on the shores of the lake. The hotel was a real find, quite luxurious but not expensive. We had a meal in the restaurant overlooking the lake and then went for an on-sen (volcanic hot spring bath). The on-sen was divided into too sections one for men and one for women. Both were outside bit only the men's section had a view of the lake. As I sat alone in the steaming pool and gazed out across the lake lit by a stunning full moon I began to feel I was gaining some gradual insight into what the medieval Japanese painters and poets were getting at. A peaceful end to a dramatic day.

The next morning we were up early and straight to the on-sen again to set us up for breakfast. Breakfast was an extensive layout of everything from fruit, salads, bacon eggs, rice soup etc, and good coffee. We didn't really want to move from the great view of the lake and the fantastic food but we weren't here just for our health and a days work was beckoning.

The first stop was the Hakone Botanical Garden which Natasha wanted to see. A long hot walk to the bus station and 15 minutes later we were at the cable car to take us up to the volcanic hot spring area. This is an area of Hakone which is still active with hot steam rising out of the water which boils on the surface. The main source of income is boiling eggs in the pools and selling them to visitors. The eggs turn black from the sulfur in the water. More shots of mount Fuji and then further and further up the mountain by cable car to the top and down the other side.

With each stop there is something interesting to look at, either a museum or art gallery or some strange natural feature. It seems to work on the secularised principle of a pilgrimage sites on a set route which were once the mainstay of the Buddhist religion in Japan.

By late evening it was already time to make our way back on the mountain railway branch line to Odawara and then on the Shikensen back to Tokyo.

The next morning we were up early for the local kanda matsuri festival of carrying shrines around the streets where our apartment is located. Noisy and hot all day but we followed it for most of the time. So much so that when the locals stopped for a break for cold drinks they offered us a drink as well.

Oshima

2009-05-05T06:51:00.002+03:00

We arrived on Oshima slightly the worse for wear after a musical evening with some friends of Akira Suzuki the night before where we consumed large quantities of Japanese food and drink. I slept for most of the time on the hi speed boat which took us out there. We were met by the curator of the Goro Mikura memorial Museum of Traditional Peasant and Folk Art, Mr Fuji and he took us straight to the museum to do some quick filming and for to get acquainted. Mr Fuji's father was an artist who kept alive a unique folk tradition of wood sculpture indigenous to the island of Oshima(more about this later). Then we went up to Mount Mihara to film the volcano. We didn't seem to be getting as close as I wanted(Its not active - last eruption was in 1983 and Mr Fuji was part of the team of fire-fighters and rescuers drawn from the local population). We drove around for bit more and then Mr Fuji turned off the road and onto a black lava dust trial which opened up into an enormous expanse of lava dust stretching for miles all around us. We spent an hour or more here and then roamed around the island looking at various things of interest and finally returned to the museum around 6 o'clock. Then we walked a short distance to our hotel which was a typical family Japanese hotel with Japanese style rooms and incredible views of the mountains and volcano.

The next day we were up early and headed out for some more locations in and around the main town including the hotel or at least the site of the hotel in which David Burliuk stayed in 1920 when he came to Oshima. A lot has obviously changed since then but it is still a unique feeling that you are following in the footsteps of one of the great artists of the 20th century and featured in the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde", which we filmed in 2004/5. David Burliuk wrote a book about his time on the island simply called "Oshima" which Akira Suzuki has translated into Japanese. After lunch we filmed an interview with Mr Fuji along with Akira Suzuki. We left Oshima about 3 PM on the Jet Foil and got back to Tokyo early evening where we had a good meal to finish off the trip.

Organising Next Locations

2009-05-03T17:39:00.000+03:00

Finally getting somewhere with some of the more complicated locations that need to be organised, namely Nikko, Oshima and Atami. Akira suzuki with whom I worked on the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" has invited us to go with him to the island of Oshima. Its one of the first Islands Burliuk visited when he came to Japan. Akira Suzuki wll introdcuce us to the curator of the island museum and I will film as much as possible. It takes a few hours by boat to get there so we will stay overnight and come back the next day. We have also finally got the trip to Nikko settled as well. Nikko is a small town at the entrance to Nikko National Park. It also has one reputably of the most beautiful waterfalls in Japan. All the same everything depends on the weather.

We have been meeting with old friends the last few days as well which takes up quite a bit of time and Now that the Sakura(Cherry blossom) period is over its worth reflecting on a few ideas

Tokyo Shinjuku Filming

2009-04-07T06:26:00.006+03:00

Today in Shinjuku was one of those days were you start to understand what you are doing how it will work and things will fit together. Its a rare experience which perhaps has something to do with the weather and wont last long but its a good feeling all the same. We spent almost the entire day filming in Shinjuku Goen park. Spectacular sight of cherry blossom in full blaze. Its very difficult to escape at the moment but all the same its an incredible sight. I'm not usually one for the postcard visions of a country but experiencing the cherry blossom in Japan is an unexpected delight and goes well beyond the cliches of cherry blossom romantic vision of Japan. There is a genuinely spiritual meaning to the festival in that the fleeting appearance and disappearance of the blossoms represents or embodies the fleeting character of life itself. Most of the footage I am getting at the moment will fill in gaps which will have a qualitative effect on the over all direction of the first film which is centred around traditional Japanese art. In many ways at the moment there is nothing new coming in just a building up of layers and shades to add depth to the film. When engaged with any film or any project for that matter, when you start, it takes some time to reach an understanding of the outer parameters. In other words the limits within which the film will be formed. These limits are never actually reached as any creative project is forever in the stage of formation but at some point you do get a sense of what that territory will be. With these two films I don't think I have reached that point. As I film and collect material here in Japan those limits and that territory is still in a significant state of flux.

The same thing was true of the series The Russian Avant-garde - Renaissance or Revolution whereby I was never really sure with each film and the series itself whether I was coming to the end or beginning a new phase of the series. It was only after the six films were completed that I felt as if the outer parameters of the project had been reached.

Copernicus Films - Tokyo Filming

2009-04-05T04:42:00.003+03:00

Several days of filming around Tokyo. Mostly general stuff but at the same time bearing in mind the archive footage I already have and how the archive footage might be integrated with contemporary scenes of Tokyo. This will hold true for the traditional film and the contemporary film both of which will make up the project. Filming and writing almost simultaneously which is a very new sensation. I have already done a considerable amount of research leading up to this trip but there is nothing like being in the field so to speak and seeing how things actually are on the ground and in reality. Have been spending time with Akira Suzuki who gave me a copy of his new translation of David Burliuk's book about Siberia. Its about the fifth or sixth book he has translated of Burliuk's work - its just a shame that I don't read Japanese. Information about Akira Suzuki can be found on my web site as well as an interview with him in my "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" the fifth in the series "The Russian Avant-garde - Renaissance or Revolution".
At the moment its the cherry blossom festival in Japan so I feel a bit dominated by it but at the same time I am looking at other things which are going on around Tokyo. In some sense I am still finding my feet and trying to get into some kind of rhythm. Kyoto was much easier because we had a short space of time in which to fit everything in and so we were quite focused. Here in Tokyo things are a little bit more open ended and so it requires more discipline. Some of the evening material looks interesting although I haven't had a chance to look at it all.

Japan - Kyoto Filming

2009-04-01T07:29:00.009+03:00

Arrived in Kyoto several days ago and have been working since our arrival. Shot a lot of footage already. 1000 tori gates of happiness, Arashiyama and a boat ride through mountain "rapids" down to Arashiyama, one of my favourite places in Kyoto. Some new footage but mostly picking up what I missed before and what has occurred to me after editing. One of the main advantages of our return is filling the gaps in my knowledge which I hope will make the script fuller and deeper.

These two films will be a completely new departure for Copernicus Films after recently completing the series "The Russian Avant-garde - Revolution or Renaissance"
However its fair to say that the two planned films are an offshot of the experience of the film David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde

We have now returned to Tokyo after a week in Kyoto. Plenty of new material already which will work well in both films, although this is really only the start. I was particularly pleased with the Heian Shrine material of which I really didn't have enough of. Taking a breather for a day while we settle into Tokyo. Apartment is quite good and we feel pretty comfortable with it - central and in the same area we lived in before so we know where everything is located. We will spend the next day or so relaxing, seeing friends and planning the next few weeks. Natasha has some things he needs to do as part of her own programme. We have a pretty good idea of what we want to do and what I want but it requires working out the finer details. Still trying to get into some kind of rhythm but that is just a question of time. Natasha as always giving full support and keeping a full photographic record of everything as well as getting on with her own business. This evening we will meet with Akira Suzuki who I interviewed for the David Burliuk film.

Rodchenko and Popova at the Tate Modern

2009-01-22T17:34:00.026+02:00

The Tate Modern is to host an exhibition of the graphic work of Alexander Rodchenko and Lubova Popova - "Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism" opening on 12th February 2009.

As part of the exhibition the DVD film "Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde" will be on sale in the gallery bookshop throughout the course of the exhibition where it can be purchased along side other films in the series "The Russian Avant-garde - Revolution or Renaissance" by Copernicus Films and directed by Michael Craig, (click on various links for more information) and include the titles "Meyerhold Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde", "Mayakovsky" and "Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde".

Rodchenko and Popova's designs revolutionised the way art was conceived in its relation to advertising and society. Popova was active in the world of graphics but also spent a considerable amount of energy designing sets for the theatre. She designed a set for Meyerhold's production of The Magnainimous Cuckold. The construction was a complete break from traditional concepts of theatre design and began a trend in constructivist set design in the Moscow theatre in the mid to late 1920s.

Popova's design of spinning wheels and raised platforms against a plain backdrop (see banner above) was the perfect way of fulfilling Meyerhold's intention of combining the three dimensionality of the actors body and the two dimensionality of the stage design.

The whole production showpieced Meyerhold's new acting and performance techniques called biomechanics based on movement and dance. Popova's work with Meyerhold is featured in the film "Meyerhold,Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde" which was filmed in Moscow and uses actors. The goal of the film was to understand the meaning of biomechanics as well as using archive footage and graphics to explore Meyerhold's development as a director.

David Burliuk and Gauguin in Film

2009-01-08T18:43:00.003+02:00

In 2008 Bob Duggan reviewed the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde on artblogbybob. His comments about the section which referred to Gauguin in the film led to a reassessment of the way the whole series of documentary films called The Russian Avant-garde - Revolution or Renaissance. was constituted, of which "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" is a part and was produced by Michael Craig and Copernicus Films in 2007. On his site, as well as commenting on the quality of the photography in the film, Duggan explained that he was especially interested in the part of the film about David Burliuk and his trip to Ogasawara, a small Japanese island in the Pacific ocean about a thousand kilometres south of Tokyo. David Burliuk admired and drew inspiration from Gauguin. In 1920, after several successful exhibitions in Japan, Burliuk traveled to the Ogasawara islands to recuperate after his gruelling journey through Siberia and paint in the manner of Gauguin who also traveled to the island of Tahiti in the early 1890s in order to develop what he believed would be a new art for a new era. Gauguin was himself also strongly influenced by Japanese art and this overlapping of interest in the film was of particular interest to Duggan.

When this section was included in the film, not only did it have implications for the structure of the film, in so far that Burliuk was interested in Gauguin and wanted to emulate Gauguin, it also had implications for the entire series. Gauguin was a precursor of the Russian Avant-garde and strongly influenced this unique artistic event in the history of world art. In this sense the episode devoted to Gauguin did not simply draw together strands of the Burliuk film but also drew the strands of the entire series together, connecting the sometimes disparate and amorphous phenomena which is known as the Russian Avant-garde. The Russian avant-garde incorporates movements from neo-primitivism, rayonism,constructivism and lasted roughly through a period from the 1880s until the early 1930s. This section of the film about Burliuk, gave the series a prisim though which all the various themes of the series could be viewed even if the structure is somewhat imposed on the material. Self evidently any structure which is applied to the history of the Russian avant-garde is not a true reflection of its development but merely a method of organising material into a coherent and accessible form for digestion by the public or viewer. The most important thing while preparing such a film is to be aware of this framework as something which is imposed and try not allow it to dominate an understanding of the material. In this way the viewer can reach their own conclusions or can be stimulated to discover the subject further for themselves. An example of the problems which arise for instance is associated with the whole project of presenting artists as if they were individuals working in isolation of the world around them. I will try to explain this in more detail.

In the west we privilege the individual over and above the collective and this is a result of our liberal humanist tradition derived form Christian-Judaeo concepts of the individuals place and role in the world. The development and progress of western culture is presented as a parade of past individual geniuses who serve as pillars or supports upon which society rests and in the present a further group of lone geniuses which will propel it into the future. For many Russian avant-garde artists and writers this obsession (or what they considered an obsession) with individual genius was in their eyes an obstacle to artistic progress and a false assessment of the contribution by artists to the overall development of society. As Alexander Rodchenko commented in the 1920s that in the modern era, in the age of the machine and industrialisation ..."there will never be a unique airplane or car" ..therefore ..."we need artist workers, not geniuses". This belief was further underlined by Osip Brik, the futurist thinker who announced in a clear attack on the notion of authorship and its connotations of genius, that if Pushkin had not written Eugene Onegin somebody else would have sooner or later. This brings me back to the documentary arts series: The Russian Avant-garde - Revolution or Renaissance. Nearly all the films where about individuals "Rodchenko and The Russian Avant-garde", "Meyerhold, Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde", "Kandinsky and the Russian House", "Mayakovsky" and of course "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde". Only one film in the series "Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde" has a more general thematic structure, however even in this film I concentrated on three main figures - Malevich, Tatlin and Constantine Melnikov. It was very difficult to wriggle out of such a thematic straight jacket but nonetheless in each film a concerted attempt was made to relate the individual accomplishments of each artist to the wider concerns of the period and not portray them as lone geniuses working in isolation of each other but part of an artistic movement which had deep roots in the social and political events of the early part of the 20th century. Artists like Gauguin, Kandinsky, Burliuk and Rodchenko were grappling with some of the same artistic problems of their age, albeit exploring different solutions depending on the context in which they found themselves. The film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde", with its reference to Gauguin's influence on the work of the Russian avant-garde artists of the era, presented an opportunity to draw together many of the threads which constituted this artistic epoch without forcing a preordained framework on the series. Instead the viewer could make up their own mind as to how the phenomena of the Russian avant-garde developed and influenced art in Russia before and after the revolution.

Modern Art Venue Opened in Moscow

2008-10-05T20:43:00.003+03:00

A new modern art venue has been opened in Moscow in September 2008. It is called the Garage and is literally an old Bus garage which has been renovated and bought by the Russian billionaire, Abram Abramovich as prohect managed by his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova. However it is not simply an old garage for buses but one of the most outstanding industrial architectural projects of its day. The arage was designed in 1925 by Constantine Melnikov who was one of the most innovative architects of the post revolutionary period of the 1920s and 30s.

In 1999 The film "Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde" was shot in Moscow and is part of a series of six films by Copernicus Films about the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s an 30s. In the film I devote a large portion of time to this artist and architect along with Malevich and Tatlin whose artistic innovations and experiments contributed to the devlopment of Russian and Soviet architecture.

After I filmed the somewhat down at heel exterior of the building I could never of imagined that it would eventually be used as an art gallery in Moscow, especially for a gallery which will display wooks of art by artists who previously had to present their work through underground channels or abroad.

When I was filming it was still being used as a garage for the municipal transport system. I desperately wanted to film inside but was denied permission by the authorities. However the unique and innovative design was there for anyone to see. It is built in a series of parallegrams to maximise the use of space in combination with ensuring a high level of functionality. The growth of car and petrol driven transport required new and bold design answers to cope with the new technological phenomena. Melnikov designed several other garages in Moscow which still exist today and are still in use. Below are pictures of the Intourist Garage (below) with a sweeping circular window which houses a ramp leading to the various stories.

Other architectual projects include "Club Rusakova" (below) . Melnikov was against the use of flabby weak architectual design and prefered load bearing structures with a clear functional aspect but at the same time aesthetically coherent.

Melnikov also built his own house(below) in the centre of Moscow in order to demonstrate his design for circular homes. These buildings and many others also appear in the film by Michael Craig "Architecure and The Russian avant-garde"

For a review of the film "Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde" click here

The Opening of "The Garage"

New David Burliuk painting found in Tokyo antiques market

2008-08-28T21:36:00.005+03:00

This entry is a further sequel to my work with Akira Suzuki on the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde". At the end of last year and the beginning of this year we spent three months in Japan researching material for a film. While we were there we spent a great deal of time with Akira Suzuki who we interviewed in the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde". which is part of the series by Copernicus Films The Russian Avant-garde - Revolution or Renaissance. The reason being he lived only ten to fifteen minutes from where we had rented an apartment for the duration of our stay. One Sunday morning he invited us to an open air antiques market in the grounds of the Sinto, Tomioka-Hachmangu Temple. We bought several items which were of interest to me and my wife. Among the bric a brac were old paintings, statues, chinaware and assorted vases and antiques. A short while ago Akira Suzuki contacted me with some startling news. At the very same market he had acquired a genuine David Burliuk painting (see picture below)from the period of his two year stay in Japan. To find a new painting by Burliuk is a rare event in itself but for one to turn up at such a market, moreover the same market which we had visited with Akira Suzuki, was astonishing. As I have already written early Akira Suzuki is a specialist on the work of David Burliuk in Japan and I had invited him to be interviewed for the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant" on my first trip to Japan.

Even though the painting is a bit damaged a good art restorer would be able to bring the painting back to something approachng its original condition. Its difficult to say what the location is but it is tempting to speculate that it is a scene from Ogasawara, an island in the pacific Ocean where Burliuk and Palmov stayed with their families in order to paint much in the manner of Guaguin who went to live on Tahiti to find new inspiration for his work. It certainly resembles the island but it could be Oshima which they also visited. Akira Suzuki is not sure himself. It would be good to find out one way or the other

David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde

2008-04-10T22:47:00.005+03:00

"David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" was released on DVD in the autumn of 2007. The film charts the work of the Russian futurist David Burliuk in Japan. After he left Russia during the Russian civil war, David Burliuk spent two years in Japan and put on exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto and Yokohama. His influence on the growing Japanese futurist movement was immeasurable where he worked with Japanese artists such as Kinoshita and Murayama. The film features locations in Moscow, Tokyo, Kyoto and a small Island called Ogasawara in the Pacific Ocean which Burliuk visited in the manner of Gauguin. Japanese art was was gradually transformed in the Meiji period of the late 19th century and early 20th century after the Meiji restoration which heralded Japan's entry onto the global stage.

Perceptions of

Japan as a closed and traditional society changed in the aftermath of the Meiji restoration. There was a Rush to modernize and industrialize Japanese society. Some artists were beginning to recognize the hegemony of industrial society and its profound implications for art and culture. It spawned a counter culture in

Japan with a tendency to rebellion by those who saw in modernism a progressive opportunity but also its tendency for alienation. However it was Burliuk who translated to Japanese audiences developments in Russian art .

After just two weeks in Japan he had organised an exhibition in Tokyo entitled “The first Exhibition of Russian Paintings in Japan” which opened on Oct 14^th at the Hoshi pharmaceutical head quarters in Kyoboshi. There are few records left of this exhibition but reviews described astonishing works of dangling socks and matchboxes attached to paintings and painting rendered on cardboard.

Part of the film involved visiting an island called Ogasawara which is situated in the Pacific Ocean about 1000 kilometres south of Tokyo. The Journey takes around 26 hours and can only be reached by ship. Burliuk visited the island and spent about three months there painting and relaxing after his mammoth journey through Siberia and onto Japan and the various exhibitions in Tokyo and Kyoto. It made a warm change from the icy blasts of a siberian winter. I had already decided that I would follow Burliuk's journey to this island as well as film in Tokyo and Kyoto. I had already completed half the journey, albeit on a comfortable flight from Moscow to Tokyo. Now it was time to go all the way, as far as Burliuk himself went.

Burliuk was a keen student of Japanese culture and much like his idol Gauguin he immersed himself in Japanese culture and art. Interestingly enough Burliuk's Journey to Ogasawara began when he left by ship from a point not far from where Basho started his travels in old Edo the former capital of Japan which became Tokyo. Basho was another wanderer poet much like Burliuk who was destined to travel throughout the world seeking new inspiration for his art and life.

I wasn't sure how the Ogasawara material would relate to the rest of the film. In fact sometimes I doubted the wisdom of going there at all. This all changed after my interview with Akira Suzuki. A friend of a friend recomended me to interview him as a Japanese expert of Burliuk's time in Japan in general. He writes about Burliuk's work and art and translates his books from Russian into Japanes He as published several translations of Burliuk's writings from Russian into Japanese as well as a number of books about Burliuk and Fialev, the Czech artist who traveled to Japan and Ogasawara with Burliuk. (Follow this link for more information about Akira Suzuki's work).
Akira Suzuki turned out to have a wide knowledge of Burliuk's life and work in Japan, which very few people would have known if any at all. This inside knowledge and understanding proved invaluable for the film. This was especially true when he explained how Burliuk wanted to visit a south sea island and spend time painting there much like Guaguin. This was the reason he visited Ogasawara. Suddenly many things fell into place and I understood why Ogasawara would be important to the film and indeed the series about the Russian avant-garde overall. Burliuk was the Father of Russian futurism and was heavily influenced by Guaguin as was much of the Russian avant-garde itself either through Burliuk's influence or generally through other artists.

Guaguin himself when searching for a new form of art drew upon Japanese art as a way of discovering a new style or a new direction in art. As he said himself "artists have lost, ......all their instincts, one might say their imgaination and so they have wandered down every kind of path in order to find the productive elements they hadn't the strength to create". Gauguin was the first European artist who consciously sought to synthesis the expressive means of various epochs and peoples with European artistic techniques, in particular the Japanese, opening up new possibilities for painting and art.

Burliuk also was forever seeking new rhythmical structures and innovations in his work, simple solutions for expressing new ideas and phenomena. In this the Japanese artistic values of the ornamental organisation of the surface of the canvas would provide him with ample material for study.

Akira Suzuki explained how Burliuk not only organised exhibitions and gave lectures, he thoroughly familiarized himself with Japanese life. He took care to understand a complicated culture full of diverse subtleties and nuances. Burliuk tried to penetrate the meaning that lies embedded in the aesthetic life of Japanese culture and art much like his idol Gauguin.

The importance of Gauguin for Burliuk cannot be underestimated. Gauguin was a precurser of the 20th cnetury avant-garde movementas a whole. His independent and bold search for a new form of art had an enormous influence on the development of the decorative principles of the Russian avant-garde. Far from the turmoil of civil war and revolution Burliuk believed he could live and work in an environment of relative safety.

All at once, talking with Akira Suzuki, the themes of the Russian avant-garde, David Bulriuk, Guaguin, Japan, Japanese futurism and a south sea island merged into something concrete and understandable in the context of a film and in particular a film about Burliuk and his relation to Russian and Japanese futurism.

From his writings we can imagine Burliuk’s thoughts as in the early morning light the ship approached Ogasawara. Coming out on deck he could gaze on the fantastic sight of an island he had never seen before.

Akira Suzuki was a knowledgable and relaxed interviewee. The thing I liked most about him on screen is his easy and friendly delivery. I had the choice of interviwing him in English or Japanese. In the end I went for the Japanese with English subtitles as his enthusiam and excitement for the subject comes through when speaking in his own language. This was exactly the mood I wished to create in the film and in this Akira Suzuki helped me a great deal. The things he knew about Burliuk had a personal quaility about it, one could feel that he had a strong attachment towards Burliuk and a feel for the subject as well as having engaged in the research. His anecdotes and stories about Burliuk in Japan could only have come from sources close to the Japanese.

On a later visit to Japan Akira Suzuki took myself and my wife Natalia to the very place where Burliuk boarded ship to Ogasawara. It is a quiet stretch of water in the heart of Tokyo. Later the same day he took us to a nearby region where the Hakia poet Basho lived and composed his poetry and from where he set off on his journeys around Japan seeking inspiration and enlightenment. I couldn't help thinking of Burliuk who set off not very far from the spot where Basho undertook his spiritual journeys around Japan and wondering if Burliuk felt any connection with the great poet of Japanese literature given that Burliuk was as much of a poet as he was a painter.

A few days later Akira had another surprise waiting for us. He asked me would I like to see an original painting of David Burliuk which a friend of his had in his possession. Of course we jumped at the chance. The next day we arranged to meet and we all travelled by metro to Ikejiri-Ohashi.

A short walk from the station was a small modest shop-front gallery overshadowed by one of those giant exressways which are raised above the city on tall thick columns and criss cross Tokyo. We went inside and were introduced to a gentle mannered man in his late 50s who owned the gallery. After some tea and getting to know each other he brought out a cardboard carton and gradually took off the wrapping to reveal a beautiful unframed canvas of a village on Oshima in 1920 which Burliuk painted on one of his visits to the island. For the first time I realised why some people want to collect or horde great works of art. The magic of being close to something or someone through their work was literally breathtaking, especially somebody who I had been researching for so many months. It felt like small currents of electricty running through my spine. I thought I had come to know Burliuk quite well but gazing at a work of art which had been painted in Japan and which I could pick up and look and touch and feel, was a very different experience from seeing something in an art gallery and moreover by an artist of such stature in the Russian avant-garde. When I turned the painting round to look at the back, there in faded Russian and Japanese, was written, that the painting had been exhibited in the "First Exhibition of Russian Painting in Japan". I and Natasha examined the painting for maybe half an hour. It was an experience that I didn't really expect, in so far as looking at a painting can be such an energising event. It is something which is difficult to put into words

The second half of the film is about Burliuk's influence on the Japanese avant-garde itself which was considerable. After he emigrated finally to America with his family the legacy of his time in Japan continued to live on and influence Japanese futurist artists like Kinoshito and Murayama who had a strong influence in all areas of Japanese cultural life - literature, architecture, the visual arts, design and to a large extent theatre.

The explosion of passions was reflected in the two exhibitions оf the Sanka association, in the second half of September 1925. Because "Sanka in the Theater" attracted wide attention, the exhibition was crowded with more visitors than the organizers had expected. Augmented by an extra 122 works, this exhibition was the largest оf the avant-garde movement. Disparate media and subjects scandalized the public: а Dadaist assemblage of two ropes entitled Lumpen Proletariat А апd B was executed by Toki Okamoto who had come to the gallery and made it on the spot; the entrance tо the gallery was decorated by а large, three-dimensional hybrid assemblage; apart from these Dadaist pieces, some pure geometric works were also shown.

The exhibition was an experiment, a scandal and a social event.

The Japanese avant-garde attempted to cut across two opposing trends in Japanese art. The national traditionalist approach in art and the westernization of art which had gripped Japanese culture. Informed by Burliuk’s experiments and their own innovations they searched for new art forms which would liberate them from the confines of these two trends.

Burliuk conceived elements of surface plain, texture and colour as tangible elements in painting asserting the two dimensionality of the picture surface. Such bold experiments in painting were readily taken up by Japanese futurism and the avant-garde in general giving the innovations of Japanese artists a global outlook and focus at a time when Japan was still emerging from a period of isolation and coming to grips with industrialization and its social consequences.

Akira Suzuki: Books, Translations and other work

2008-04-10T21:10:00.000+03:00

Below is a selection of Akira Suzuki's work. He lives in Tokyo and is a one of the leading experts in Burliuk's work and life with special reference to Japan. His research into this subject was featured in the film, about David Burliuk's 2 year stay in Japan between 1920-22. Below is a clip form the film "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" which features an interview with Akira Suzuki discussing Burliuk's work in Japan.

Akira Suzuki's Translation into Japanese of David Burliuk's book "Oshima" with commentary. David Burliuk wrote this account of the time he spent on Oshima.

In 1920 David Burliuk and Vacaslav Fiala traveled to Ogasawara with their families to paint and work. This is a translation from Russian into Japanese of their stay on this island which is roughly 1000 kilometres to the south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean. There is a commentary in Russian by Akira Suzuki and Nobert Evdaev. This is a comprehensive account of Burliuk's and Fiala's journey to Ogasavara with an extensive reference to Japanese archives

A translation of Burliuk's story of life in Japan during his visit there

A translation of Burliuk's work about the Crimea written in Vladivlastok just before he traveled to Japan

This is a translation into Japanese of the Czech artist Vacaslav Fiala's account of his stay on Ogasawara. Akira Suzuki has translated this work into Japanese and included reproductions of Fiala's paintings, drawings and engravings. The book is a perfect compliment to David Burliuk's account of Ogasawara as the two men traveled together to paint on Ogasawara much in the manner of Guaguin who in the previous century traveled to Tahiti for new sources of inspiration and impressions.

Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde

2008-01-03T15:30:00.004+02:00

The second film in the series "The Russian Avant-garde" grew out of the first in that Rodchenko phot0graphed many of the new buildings which had been built in Moscow and which were themselves a product of the avant-garde. Through researching Rodchenko I quickly became interested in the Russian avant-garde as a whole and the outline of a second film had already began to emerge before the first was finished. I researched the buildings I wanted to film and spent a few weeks travelling across Moscow discovering where they were located and how best to film them. I really wanted to show the relationship between avant-garde art and its influence on architectural design of that period. I decided to structure the film around 3 main figures: Tatlin, Malevich and Melnikov. I wanted to start work in April using the same cameraman, Valentin Savenkov, as I used on the Rodchenko film. I also wanted to start in early April as some of the buildings would be hidden by trees once the leaves started to grow. We managed to get going in late April but because the spring is late in Moscow there was no real problem with leaves on trees. Some of the buildings were suffering from neglect as can be seen in the film but many were in remarkably good condition. Filming on the streets of Moscow is not without an occasional adventure and the Architecture film was no exception. The first problem arose when we wanted to film inside the house that Melnikov had built for himself, a construction of two cylinders inter-cut into each other. Valentin said that maybe Melnikov's son who lives there now would let us film inside. It might seem amateurish, not having planned this before and then suddenly decide to knock on someones door on the off chance that they will allow us to film inside their home but in Russia this is quite acceptable. We rang the bell and the gate was opened by an eighty year old man who was Melnikov's heir and son. Thin and wiry, he looked at us with a quizzical expression of curiosity and annoyance. Valentin explained the situation and then let slip that the film was about constructivist architecture. I knew this was a mistake and I was not making a film about constructivist architecture in any case. Melnikov's son looked at us with a hurt expression in his eyes, saying, in an pained tone of voice, "Papa wasn't a constructivist - Papa was an artist". That was it, I knew we weren't going to get in under any circumstances. I went back a few days later by myself and tried to negotiate with him but again it was no good. I could see he was tired of film crews and people wanted to look inside the building all the time.

Later there was a building which I wanted to film not far from Lubiyanka. It was a government building and I had already spotted a policeman standing nearby but before I could warn Valentin he had the Betacam out and up on the tripod. The Policeman waved his baton at us and Valentin took the camera off the tripod and we moved on. All in all it wasn't a good day and I didn't get everything I needed.

I decided to try and film some of the more difficult buildings with a smaller camera on my own which wouldn't draw such attention to myself. I shot several buildings which I needed for the computer graphics which I planned and some of the buildings which I had missed the first day of shooting. I was filming a building in a quiet region of Moscow and gradually I could feel that people were checking out what I was doing. I had feeling someone would call the police. I just got everything that I need filmed and in the distance I could see a police car coming down the road. Fortunately I already had the camera packed away and was walking up the road towards were they were coming from and they drove straight past me. They stopped at the building where I had been filming and out of the corner of my eye I could see they were speaking to some one who came out of a building opposite. I dodged quickly into a small road between two buildings and walked quickly to the metro where I was able to blend in with the crowd.

The following day I went to Red Square to shoot some material. There I could happily pose as a tourist and remain relatively anonamous. Or so I thought. It was a very hot sunny day and I began filming around the Moscow Museum which faces onto Red square and Manezh square. If you have been to Moscow, Manezh square has an enormous statue of Marshall Zhukov on a horse. Within minutes I was surrounded by a group of homeless guys who wanted to know all about the project and spoke knowledgably about what were the best angles from which to film buildings. "We know everything about this place, we live here" which of course they did - literally on the streets. They probably wanted to help me for money but I did get the distinct impression that the just wanted to help me because they were genuinely interested in what I was doing. I talked to them for a while and then moved on.

A friendly faced thin middle aged man with a sun-burnt face, then stopped me and asked me to film him. "I've just spent twenty years in prison and I have come to Red Square on my first day of freedom. Take a picture of me so that there is something to say that I have existed". He smiled amiably as I filmed him and then we parted. Five minutes later we bumped into each other and smiled foolishly at each other. Fifteen minutes later, again we bumped into each other, in a different part of the Red Square complex. We both stopped and he said to me "this is the third time we have met, lets exchange coins". He gave me one ruble and I gave him one ruble from my pocket. "You're a good guy" he said and we shook hands and I never saw him after that. I don't know what the significance of exchanging coins is but it seemed very important at the time.

One of the main components of the film is the computer graphics. I had never worked with computer graphics before but I thought for a film about architecture it would be appropriate. I found a guy called Vladimir Sokolov who was recommended to me by a friend and I explained to him what I wanted to do. We worked out some simple story boards and he came up with what I think are some interesting graphics of Tatlin's Tower and Malevich (see videos below) plus some others.

The film was complicated by the fact that I needed to change studios half way through the editing process and this led to a lot of delays. At that time I was less familiar with studios in Moscow than I am now and more or less had to go on other peoples recommendation's. The studio I found was alright but I didn't want to make another film there. Once the film was completed I was contacted by the International Festival of Cinema and Technology to submit the film for participation in their festival which was being held in Toronto that year. They nominated it for best documentary film in the competition but the prize went to another film.

Meyerhold, Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde

2007-12-20T21:12:00.001+02:00

The film Meyerhold, Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde, grew out of the Mayakovsky film.

Meyerhold's task was to combine the three dimensionality of the actors body with the flat two dimensionality of the set design. In order to solve this problem he turned to the developments in the graphic experiments of the Russian avant-garde, people like Popova, Rodchenko etc. He also wanted to move away from a theatre based on words or text for expressing emotions and ideas, to a theatre based on gesture and movement in order to create and widen the possibilities for creating an emotional atmosphere in any given play. For instance Chekov wrote(roughly speaking) for one type of theatre which was actor/text based.

Meyerhold's productions included influences from Kabuki theatre which is based on mime and dance, the action developing around a series of gestures and poses as much as a result of the text of the play. With both of the above in mind, Meyerhold developed a specific training technique for his actors called biomechanics.

It consisted of a series of exercises and movements in which an actor could collectively, either with a partner or a group of actors, develop non textual or non verbal ways of expressing inner emotions. Through the movement of the actors body, emotions which could not easily be represented by words i.e. crowd scenes or group or mass action revealed themselves on the stage. One of the first plays in which all these elements were synthesised was "The Magnanimous Cuckold". Popova designed the set as a moving dynamic construction almost like a machine in motion. The actors deprived of any make up or costumes struggled to find their feet in this unusual set construction. Here however Meyerhold's training of biomechanics helped and both actors and set were synthesised into one grand machine moving in unison to the rhythm of Meyerhold's direction. In order to show how Meyerhold achieved this in a documentary film it was decided to use actors to "recreate" Meyerhold's techniques. A simple solution was devised of filming the actors performances as shadows. We shot the shadows with an English actor in Moscow who had previously studied at the Moscow Arts theatre. We weren't quite sure how to go about filming biomechanics so we improvised using the knowledge that we had. The idea of the shadows was to make the presentation more abstract and less concrete so that the emphasis would be on the movement itself rather than the person. This, as far as I understand was echoing some of Meyerhold's ideas. Once again I asked Slava Sachkov to film the sequences of shadows.

Watch an extract from the film.

Kandinsky and the Russian House

2007-12-20T12:06:00.002+02:00

After a long and torturous route this film has finally been completed and released on Amazon as DVD. It is the sixth film in a series about the Russian avant-garde by Copernicus Films and the director Michael Craig. The film took longer than expected for many reasons. Firstly it was necessary to interrupt the editing to finish the film David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde (Also part of the series). secondly when it came to editing the material it was obvious that there would be a need to shoot more material. Also in a strange sense I wasn't sure how the film should look or be. After making four films about the Russian avant-garde where the style was relatively similar, now I was confronted with a set of material and a subject which required a different approach and a different look but at the same time should integrate with the over all series. For this reason I embarked on finishing David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde and leaving the editing of Kandinsky until later.

As it turned out this was a good idea. When I returned to the Kandinsky film I had fresh ideas which were incorporated into the film. One of the central ideas of the film was a sequence where Kandinsky enters his studio and is struck by the sight of one of his paintings bathed in rays of light. He doesn't know whether the painting is upside down or what the painting is supposed to depict. It was at this moment that Kandinsky took a leap forward in his search for abstract forms in art. In the editing of this sequence all the threads and various elements of the film came together.

The idea was to show the state of Kandinsky's consciousness at the particular moment of illumination and to illustrate the accompanying transformation in his consciousness. How Kandinsky's understanding of his own art transformed itself qualitatively to a new level.

From here the film became much easier to edit and eventually complete.

Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde

2007-09-28T12:54:00.000+03:00

About the photography of Alexander Rodchenko and the making of this film in Moscow.

By Michael Craig
When I began to make films in Russia in the mid 1990s, I was prepared for all kinds of problems but none of the problems I subsequently encountered. I had already worked in the UK for many years in the film and television industry. I finally decided to move to Moscow to make films and to write. The first two years was a question of finding my feet both linguistically and culturally in a city and a society which was undergoing a total transformation. I had an advantage in that I had already learnt Russian language at school and also had worked in St Petersburg for almost four months on a BBC Drama in 1993. It was this experience which decided me to move to Russia, albeit Moscow. All the same there is a great difference between working in Russia with all the support that a paid position offers and actually living day by day in an alien environment. As I already mentioned the first two years were a case of acclimatization. Just as I ran out of money during my first winter in Moscow in a tiny room in a large apartment built in the Stalin era, I was offered a job on a feature film "The Saint". This got me through the worst deprivations of that first year. It wasn't so bad in reality. The apartment was warm and the old lady who owned it, let me live my life as I pleased without interfering. As long as I paid the rent, that's all she worried about.The job on the "Saint" ended and a BBC film "The Stringer" started shortly afterwards in Moscow and I worked on this film for the next six months and by the time the following winter arrived I was in a better financial position than the previous winter. I had also got into the Moscow rhythm of life so that even the financial collapse of 1998 passed me by more or less unnoticed as it did many Russians who considered it just another one of those things which they had to cope with.However I felt it was time to start on my own work and make a film. That was one of the main reasons I came to Moscow. When I was working in Warsaw I was introduced to Zygmunt Malanowicz, who played the role of "the young man" in Roman Polanski's first film "Knife in the Water". I asked him why he didn't go to Hollywood with Polanski when he had the opportunity. He wasn't able to give me a good answer but he said he was much happier making feature films in Minsk for under $70,000 than spending his time in Hollywood. It was one of those moments which opened my eyes to a whole new set of possibilities for making films outside the usual political system for raising money for film projects. Also the aesthetic of Eastern European and Russian Film making appealed to many of my sensibilities. So now I was in Moscow with all kinds of ideas for making films but where to start. I became interested in the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s and by chance picked up a book in the Tretiykov Gallery about the avant-garde artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko. What attracted me to him especially was that he gave up painting for photography, denouncing paining as "finished" and unfit to express the modern social and visual realities of life in the early 19th century with its speed and industrial cityscape's and mass culture. Photography he believed could better express and embody this reality and Rodchenko set about experimenting with new techniques of photography and photo collage, exploring new visual territory in his home in Moscow. What especially interested me about Rodchenko was that he denied the value of painting and art as a matter of principle and this I thought would be a good starting point for a film.I decided there and then to make a film about Rodchenko and his work. I gathered together some money and began researching Rodchenko's work and managed to find a good camera operator, Valentin Savenkov. I wrote a script showed it to Valentin and worked out where and what in Moscow I wanted to film. This was relatively straight forward at that time.The first day of filming around Moscow was not good. After about an hour it began to rain and didn't stop for four hours. I had checked the weather forecast but light drizzle was all that was expected. A week later we tried again. It was mid october and the weather was perfect. A deep blue sky, such as you only get in Russia at that time of the year when the air is cold, crisp and clear. Perfect weather for the kind of effect that I wished to bring to the film. Sharply defined edges of light and shade to give volume to the composition of shots and which would compliment Rodchenko's photographs. One of the hallmarks of Rodchenko's work is the balance between light and shade, volume and line all of which are contained within the composition of the photograph and its subject. Nothing needs to be added or taken away afterworlds, no effect or mystification is necessary everything exists already in the photograph and its compositional value giving a visual power and strength which is immediately apparent.The real problem came when I decided that I wanted to film a dramatisation of Rodchenko using an actor. I had a venue where I could film - a small room in a Museum which had a desk exactly like one in a photograph with Rodchenko working in his study. It just needed a bit of rearranging and we were back in the 1920s. The hard bit was finding Rodchenko. Rodchenko had a shaved head which gave him a very distinctive look. It would have been possible to find any bald actor and film them in shadow or partly hidden so that the face was not important but just the over all impression. I interviewed actor after actor but it just wasn't right. I was introduced to a famous Punk singer, Sasha Sclyr, who had also shaved his head. I met him but again it just wasn't right. I began to get desperate. I found an American who seemed to fit the part but he disappeared almost as quickly as he appeared. I started to look for bald men on the streets of Moscow, on the Metro trying to gather enough courage to ask them if they would be interested in working on a film. The few attempts I made were not very successful. I began to contemplate using Yuri Lushkov, the bald Mayor of Moscow and drafted a letter which with the help of an influential friend I could maybe enlist him in the part of Rodchenko. I wanted to get on with the film and I was getting nowhere.I had given up, nothing was working. Then one evening I was in a cafe in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall waiting to meet someone and I saw that in an enjoining cafe they were filming something. Always interested, I walked round to get a better look. One of the actors that I worked with on the "Saint" was playing one of the roles in the main scene they were filming in the cafe. Suddenly a guy with a shaved head walked onto the set from behind the camera said something to the actors and walked back into the shadows from where he had appeared. My first thought was "its Rodchenko". The resemblance was uncanny, not just that he had shaved his head but everything. In a free moment I caught the eye of the actor that I knew and asked him who is that guy. "He's the director". "Introduce me to him". I said. I had to wait to the filming stopped and I was introduced to Anatoly Artemanov, the director of the film. Anatoly was a Russian Director living in new York and he had come over to Direct Russian in Moscow quickly explained to him what I needed him for and he immediately agreed and when I told him I had some money and that I could pay him he said "and you'll pay me as well !- that's even better".This was the final piece in the jigsaw of the first film I made in Moscow and the film was completed with final editing and sound recording in March 1999. I found an English actor William Rousey, to do the narration. In this I was very lucky. He had studied at the famous Moscow Arts Theatre and so had a good grasp of Russian culture and the kind of voice that I thought would suit the film. I hadn't intended to make any more films about the Russian avant-garde but as always one thing leads to another. The Rodchenko film was quite successful and the outline of a second film began to emerge about avant-garde architecture of the same period. This again would pose problems but of a very different kind.

Features of the Russian avant-garde.
Features of the Russian avant-garde. One of the important things to remember about Rodchenko and his co artists was that they sought to de-mystify art, to reveal its most fundamental character, its reality, exposing its materials and processes. And they attempted to engage the viewer in a direct and unmediated experience. There was no attempt to represent an outside reality or a reality which was doctored in the developing process, with the viewer responding only to what was in front of them. As a communist his idea of photographic truth would have satisfied many of Rodchenko's ideological and concerns as well as his "aesthetic" quest for truth.Rodchenko used qualities already inherent in the subject - light,shade, volume. line, contrast etc and drew the viewers attention to these qualities by his system of Rakursy or perspectives i.e. using the angle from which the object is photographed to maximize the compositional value of the subject or the visual dynamics of the subject without falsifying it. In other words these qualities are already inherent in the subject and the camera is used merely to bring out these qualities in new and interesting ways - to make the usual unusual and and make the unusual usual. Rodchenko was against manipulating the technical capacities both in photography and and developing stages by interfering unduly in the process to produce effects, which would distort the reality of the subject. "Rakursy" exploited the visual "laws" already given in the everyday world as seen by human beings. The function of the camera is to exploit these laws, volume, light shade, rhythm etc) to the maximum advantage for presenting the subject to the viewer. Not arbitrarily as Rodchenko was often accused of doing but consciously and deliberately. As Rodchenko himself noted. "These laws have always existed even though they are hard to describe and explain.

For instance there is one picture of a diver on an ascending upswing before descending into the water. The diver is placed in the far right hand corner and the question arises why not in the center or in the left hand corner or to the side. Rodchenko consciously exploits two of the specific features of human perception.
In western culture we read from left to right. The placing of the figure in the top right hand corner creates a natural dynamic drawing our vision upwards to the rising figure. We seem to be looking up as if we were at the event itself staring up as a spectator even though we are looking at the photograph square on. Secondly the illusion of motion is purposely created from a still image, which at that time was an innovative and bold approach to photography which today we very much take for granted . Its not clear if they are connected but Rodchenko's sketch on a note pad on the left hand side seems to show how important these geometric "laws" were for Rodchenko' approach to photography.

Michael Craig 2007

Mayakovsky

2007-04-16T16:10:00.001+03:00

Mayakovsky was probably the most problematical film to make from a number of points of view. Firstly Mayakovsky's poetry is very specific and avant-garde although there are some very good translations in English. However I wanted to retain the original Russian to preserve the original rhythm of his poetry and this caused considerable problems. I had to understand the poetry myself in the first place before I could start working on the film. This is easier said than done when reading from the Russian. In addition to this I wanted to shoot in the The State Museum of Mayakovsky on Lubyanka and this required some delicate negotiations with the museum administration. In the end we agreed the terms under which I could film inside the museum but not without some restrictions. Also once again I had to find a new studio and also a new camera operator. In both these cases I was lucky. I found one of the most prominent documentary film cameramen in Russia, Slava Sachkov, who has long experience in the Russian film industry and is a director himself and a partner in the Film Company "Ostrov" in Moscow which made "Seven up" for the BBC and Granada TV, not to mention a host of award winning Russian documentary series. I don't think I could have found anybody better and we immediately formed a good working relationship. We shot a lot of material around Moscow to start off with and then all the graphics, photographs and pictorial material from archives etc. On the agreed day we then went into the Mayakovsky Museum to film more material. Its one of the most original museums ever devised, designed in the a style of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s, with sloping floors and iron girders poking out in different directions It's a vast constructivist ensemble designed to house the collection of Mayakovsky's work and life in a way that on the one hand arrests the viewers attention and on the other deconstructs their visual sensibilities. One of the good things about the museum is that it is like a film set albeit a little unconventional and so it made an ideal place to film, lending a specific emotional atmosphere to the film. Mayakovsky had a room in this building on the top floor in which he ostensibly shot himself in the heart. In the 1970s the entire building on Lubyanka was taken over and converted into a museum dedicated to Mayakovsky. With Slava's professional camera work we were able to get some unusual shots which I was able to use in several sequences in the film. Slava managed to get exactly the right balance between light and shadow to give the film the edge and atmosphere which I was seeking.

One of the things I wanted to do in the film was to use an actor to read Mayakovsky's poetry. I thought this would be an easy thing to do but I interviewed actor after actor. Sometimes they had the right kind of voice a deep velvety bass but they were unable to catch the rhythms of Mayakovsky's complicated imagery. Also Mayakovsky had a very specific timbre, powerful and rich, as he said of his own voice it could hammer rivets into steel plates. Mayakovsky's live performances were notorious and nobody could better him in live debates and the futurist evenings at the Polytechnic Museum where the read out their declarations and manifesto's. At first I couldn't understand what the problem was with these actors until someone explained to me that in this new era, i.e. since perestroika many of these skills are being lost and younger actors no longer need or wanted to study the necessary skills for this type of reading. I decided the next best thing would be to actually find recordings of Mayakovsky himself reading his poems. I went to the All Russian audio archive in Moscow. They had some recordings of Mayakovsky but also other recordings of actors from the 30s,40s and 50s reading Mayakovsky's work. Some of it was excellent and just what I was looking for and I selected about ten large fragments from Mayakovsky's larger poems plus several complete poems such as "Could you not". I wanted to include a fragment from the poem "Lenin" but there was no recording of this work at the audio archive. In the end I found an older actor called and got him to do some reading. He had a perfect voice and actually knew most of "Lenin"off by heart. He knew exactly how to use his voice and tailoring his intonation and vocal stylistics to great effect. The recordings where Mayakovsky is reading himself are not in good condition but the power of his voice and personality come through and the recordings stand in the same way as visual archive footage, which although sometimes in poor condition have a dynamism and authentic amplitude.

The film took a great deal of time and effort especially as I decided to make a Russian version as well as an English version. I felt this was necessary and I hoped to show the film to Russian audiences.

As with all these films about the avant-garde one film almost seamlessly leads into another and because Mayakovsky wrote many plays as well as poetry and was championed by the Theatre director Meyerhold, as a new Aristophanes, it was natural that the next film in this series would be about Meyerhold. Mayakovsky wrote several plays for Meyerhold, The Bathhouse, The Bedbug and Mystery Bouffe and while Meyerhold liked to have complete control of his productions he permitted to Mayakovsky to be present at rehearsals at all times and valued Mayakovsky's contributions and observations at all levels of the production process.

New Films in Series "The Russian Avant-garde"

2007-03-08T11:39:00.000+02:00

In addition to the four films already released about the Russian Avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s, Copernicus Films is releasing two further films in the series "The Russian Avant-garde" which are now in post production. "David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde" will be ready for release on DVD in a month. The film charts the work of the Russian futurist David Burliuk in Japan. After he left Russia during the Russian civil war, David Burliuk spent two years in Japan and put on exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto and Yokohama. His influence on the growing Japanese futurist movement was immeasurable where he worked with Japanese artists such as Kinoshita and Muramaya. The film features locations in Moscow, Tokyo, Kyoto and a small Island on the Pacific Ocean which Burliuk visited in the manner of Gauguin.

Japanese art was was gradually transformed in the Meiji period of the late 19th century and early 20th century after the Meiji restoration which heralded Japan's entry onto the global stage.

The other film to be released in the series is a film about Kandinsky. This will follow towards the end of spring 2007.

Tarkovsky and Time

2007-02-10T11:43:00.000+02:00

Watching many films which use slow motion for effect gives rise to the question of time in film making. Tarkovsky seemed to be able to create time in his films, to slowdown time, speed up time and play with the concept of time in general exploring its dimensions character through the lens of the camera and its relationship to the speed of the film. Tarkovsky does use slow motion in his films but even then it is not noticeable as an effect or something which is artificially induced in the process of editing.

One example of this characteristic is particularly evident in the film Andrie Rublev. In the scene after the taking of Vladimir there is a lull in the action. A group of soldiers are battering down the door of the cathedral where the local population have taken refuge. The sound of the ramming is a set beat repeated over and over again. The two princes, Russian and Tartar are patiently waiting almost unconcerned with the proceedings sitting on their horses who also seem to be waiting patiently, resting so to speak. The repose of the riders and the horses contrasts with the rhythmic beat of the battering ram. The whole effect creates a sensation of two strands of time operating simultaneously. When the doors of the cathedral are finally breached, the two princes and soldiers burst through the open doors and the two time strands are united with their combined action, that is the entrance into the cathedral.

This episode marks the beginning of a kind of fall of civilisation and is followed, historically, by a period of desolation in Russia and to some extent, if I remember rightly it marks a period of desolation in Andrie Rublev's artistic and spiritual state, which for Russian icon painters are one and the same thing. The spiritual and the artistic are combined in the activity of painting icons. This period of desolation ends in Russia and in the film and for Andrei Rublev, with the final scene of the tolling of a huge bell which has been cast by a young boy whose father, the master bell maker was killed in the preceding upheaval. The scene is fraught with tension as there is no guarantee that the bell will ring true as the secret of casting the bell may have been lost with the death of the boy's father. Two of the workers start to swing the hammer which creaks with the rhythmic swinging creating a beat which seems to echo (in my mind) the rhythm of the pounding of the cathedral doors which I just mentioned above. As the hammer approaches closer to the side of the bell, the tension and anticipation increases until suddenly we are released and from this state with the relief and joy of the first deep peal of the bell which resonates around the waiting crowds. Its supposed to be, I believe, for Tarkovsky a moment of renewal and transformation in the film. Once again two strands of time which are identified in the rhythm of the battering ram and the rhythm of the bell being tolled are organically unified in the overall structure of the film. The moment of the first sound of the bell is similar to the moment when the doors of the cathedral are breached. The circle has been closed and there is a spiritual restoration with the pealing of the bell. The rhythm of the battering ram and the scene with the bell and the consequent transformation of the scene to a new rhythmic and visual structure are mirrored in each other which unifies the opposition of their content.

The bell scene is almost identical to a scene in Ridley Scott's film about Christopher Columbus. He uses the scene to mark I presume the establishment of civilisation in the New World, However it appears to be added into the film seemingly with little or no purpose other than a good scene. The fact that the church is destroyed later in a storm adds little to the significance of the scenes inclusion in the film. Incidentally the writer of Andrei Rublev, Director Andrie Konchalovsky, appeared on a Russian TV programme and was quite critical of Ridley Scott albeit in a different context. I wonder if the two are connected and if Konchalovsky had the bell ringing scene in the back of his mind when he made his comments.

Copernicus Films

2007-02-07T17:15:00.000+02:00

Copernicus Films operates out of Russia making documetary films and was created by Michael Craig. At the moment we are completing a series of films about the Russian Avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s including films about Mayakovsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Meyerhold and Russian Avant-garde architecture as well as other figures of the Russian Avant-garde. All films are out on DVD and can be purchased on Amazon. The series will eventually be made up of six films possibly more. All films have been shot on location in Moscow over a period of several years. Maykovsky was shown on Swedish TV in 2006, Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian avant-garde was shown on the ArtsWorld channel in the UK in 2003 and premiered at the Milan International Film Festival.

I live and work on a permanent basis in Russia. The details of this I will go into in later entries. There are many reasons to work in a different country but as far as Russia is concerned if you want to make films, the creative atmosphere in Moscow combined with the history of film making in Russia, makes this as good a place as any to work. Many people may doubt this but after nearly twelve years in Moscow I can say otherwise.

Copernicus Films - Moscow Archives

J-FEST Moscow 2011. Festival of Contemporary Japanese Culture

Japan-Philosophical Landscapes "Gingaku ji-Landscapes and Sandscapes"

Download or rent Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre

Soviet Art And Architecture 1915-35, Royal Academy of Arts

Soviet Art And Architecture 1915-35, Royal Academy of Arts

Tags

Japan - Philosophical Landscapes - First part released

New web documentary – “Japan- Philosophical Landscapes” almost ready for release

New Copernicus Films storefront for purchase of DVDs in UK

Process" in Film making in relation to "The Fairground Booth

Update: Autumn Grandeur in Moscow

Kandinsky and the Russian House

Day and Night in Chekhov Country

Report on the start of a new film project series from Chekov Country

"Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre" - Internet Distribution

Work on "Ogasawara" book close to completion

Dosteovsky and a sunny Moscow day

Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre - interview with Anatoly Smeliansky on Hamlet (fragment)

Return to Moscow

Release of DVD “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre”

Stanislavsky Film and Thinking Distribution

Moscow Sunset

Garbushka Day

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

Progress with Stanislavsky

"Faces of Moscow" Photographic exhibition in Moscow

Work and More Work

Moscow in Mist

3D Visions at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

St Petersburg Origins

The Museum of the East in Moscow

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

Moscow - Winter in monochrome

16th December 2010 - Every Cloud

Light at the end of the tunnel. Film updates

TAB Event - Aleksandr Rodchenko + Varvara Stepanova "Visions of Constructivism"

Schedule

Artist(s)

Website

Fee

Venue Hours

Maps

Access

Address

Thoughts from St Petersburg

Chekhov Country - Hot and hardly visible

Moscow Streets - Prelude to a film series.

Interview with Michael Craig guest speaker on Voice of Russia discussing the 32nd Moscow Film Festival

Guest Speaker → The best Moscow Film Festival ever, the 32nd

The Moscow Garage and Meyerhold Film -Reprise

Stanslavsky Documentary Film - Copernicus Films - Update

Stanislavsky Film

News about Copernicus Films work in progress

The Beginning of the Series "The Russian Avant-garde"

Guggenheim on its 50th anniversary and Kandinsky Film

What's been happening back in Moscow

Winding Down

Hakone

Oshima

Organising Next Locations

Tokyo Shinjuku Filming

Copernicus Films - Tokyo Filming

Japan - Kyoto Filming

Rodchenko and Popova at the Tate Modern

David Burliuk and Gauguin in Film

Modern Art Venue Opened in Moscow

New David Burliuk painting found in Tokyo antiques market

David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-garde

Akira Suzuki: Books, Translations and other work

Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde

Meyerhold, Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde

Kandinsky and the Russian House

Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde

Mayakovsky

New Films in Series "The Russian Avant-garde"

Tarkovsky and Time

Copernicus Films