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This profile was automatically generated using 3 references found on the Internet. This information has not been verified. Learn more...
This profile was automatically generated using 3 references found on the Internet. This information has not been verified. Learn more...
Web References
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1. www.kinokino.co.uk
www.kinokino.co.uk/main3.html - [Cached]Published on: 10/10/2007 Last Visited: 10/10/2007
HAPPY DAYS, a film by Alexei Balabanov, starring Viktor Sukhorukov, inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett.
...
Based on works by Samuel Beckett, Happy Days is the first feature by Alexei Balabanov, one of the most promising new European directors.
...
- About Alexei Balabanov
...
- Viktor Sukhorukov, the star of Happy Days and other Alexei Balabanov films on his work with Alexei Balabanov
...
ABOUT ALEXEI BALABANOV
'Balabanov is one of the world's great contemporary film-makers'
The Independent
Alexei Balabanov came to film-making in 1987, when he undertook the Higher Course in Film Directing and Scriptwriting at the renowned State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, at the age of 28. Born in Sverdlovsk in the Urals in 1959, he graduated in Modern Languages, then served as a military interpreter in Africa and the Middle East. He subsequently returned to Sverdlovsk, where he worked as an assistant director at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio.
After graduating from film school, he spent a brief period directing documentary before settling in St. Petersburg to join the New Russian Cinema movement at the Lenfilm Studio.
Balabanov immediately impressed critics at Cannes in 1992 with his feature film debut, Happy Days, which won five national awards. In 1995 his short, Trofim, won the Message to Man award for Best Short Feature.
His stylish thriller, Brother, was Russia's biggest box office hit of 1997. It was awarded the Second Prix and Fipressi at the Torino Film Festival, and was screened at Cannes and at the London Film Festival.
...
Balabanov's 1998 feature Of Freaks and Men was presented at Cannes.
...
The film has received national awards for photography, sound and Best Director for Alexei Balabanov.
Balabanov has just finished filming English-language Brother-2 which is due for completion in April 2000. Brother-2 follows the protagonist of Brother on his trip to America.
...
VIKTOR SUKHORUKOV, THE STAR OF HAPPY DAYS AND OTHER ALEXEI BALABANOV FILMS ON HIS WORK WITH ALEXEI BALABANOV
...
Balabanov of Happy Days and Balabanov today are two different people. He got upset with me for calling him a 'hedgehog' in one of my old interviews. But he did look like a hedgehog in those days. His eyes were those of a frightened child. He was modest and kept looking around him nervously. Now he is different. He's grown long hair though he has lost some on the crown of his head. Most importantly, he has changed inside. He has started holding his shoulders back and gained confidence. He says: "I don't need actors to play, I need them to be present". At first he was shaving off my theatricality. Then I got used to him and began to feel what he wants better. When making Of Freaks and Men, I felt there were not enough emotions, I wanted either to burst into laughter or smack my lips. Once I was brave enough to tell him: "Let me add a bit of fire here". He said: "No". He keeps putting the fire out in me, all the time.
Despite all this I am glad I have been an object of his creative work. Every actor dreams of coming across a director he could call 'mine'. I know, he will never let me down, make me feel ashamed or do anything bad to me. He can behave in a strange way and can be complicated or even pretentious and over-elaborate with me. But he never does anything bad.
Alright, I am just an actor while his films are shown around the world and were selected for Cannes three times ... But he never was arrogant with me, I just didn't let him. Perhaps, he is a little afraid of me - I don't know.
...
This debut feature from festival discovery Alexei Balabanov could be described as a purgatorial allegory - whether for man or Russia, it's hard to say.
...
Balabanov made a faithful version of 'The Castle' in 1994, and that has left a greater mark: here he conjures up a world of Kafkaesque hostility and minatory mystery where only a blind man with a donkey and a fallen aristocratic woman offer the protagonist any amicable communicative signs.
...
Birgit Beumers teaches Russian at Bristol University and is an expert on the work of Alexei Balabanov.
...
What the film does in retrospect - it gives us a great many clues to the work of Alexei Balabanov and his contemporary work: the two last films that he has made. That is Of Freaks and Men and Brother.
Presenter: As you say he went on to make other films, and particularly Brother, which became a huge success in Russia and was also very well noticed and well received in the West: prizes at film festivals and so on. -
2. KINO KINO! - Happy Days
www.kinokino.u-net.com/main3.h - [Cached]Published on: 7/4/2001 Last Visited: 2/24/2002
HAPPY DAYS, a film by Alexei Balabanov, starring Viktor Sukhorukov, inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett.
...
Based on works by Samuel Beckett, Happy Days is the first feature by Alexei Balabanov, one of the most promising new European directors.
...
• About Alexei Balabanov
...
• Viktor Sukhorukov, the star of Happy Days and other Alexei Balabanov films on his work with Alexei Balabanov
...
ABOUT ALEXEI BALABANOV
'Balabanov is one of the world's great contemporary film-makers'
The Independent
Alexei Balabanov came to film-making in 1987, when he undertook the Higher Course in Film Directing and Scriptwriting at the renowned State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, at the age of 28. Born in Sverdlovsk in the Urals in 1959, he graduated in Modern Languages, then served as a military interpreter in Africa and the Middle East. He subsequently returned to Sverdlovsk, where he worked as an assistant director at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio.
After graduating from film school, he spent a brief period directing documentary before settling in St. Petersburg to join the New Russian Cinema movement at the Lenfilm Studio.
Balabanov immediately impressed critics at Cannes in 1992 with his feature film debut, Happy Days, which won five national awards. In 1995 his short, Trofim, won the Message to Man award for Best Short Feature.
His stylish thriller, Brother, was Russia's biggest box office hit of 1997. It was awarded the Second Prix and Fipressi at the Torino Film Festival, and was screened at Cannes and at the London Film Festival.
...
Balabanov's 1998 feature Of Freaks and Men was presented at Cannes.
...
The film has received national awards for photography, sound and Best Director for Alexei Balabanov.
Balabanov has just finished filming English-language Brother-2 which is due for completion in April 2000. Brother-2 follows the protagonist of Brother on his trip to America.
ALEXEI BALABANOV'S FILMS
Happy Days
1992 (Un Certain Regard, Cannes; five national awards)
...
VIKTOR SUKHORUKOV, THE STAR OF HAPPY DAYS AND OTHER ALEXEI BALABANOV FILMS ON HIS WORK WITH ALEXEI BALABANOV
...
Balabanov of Happy Days and Balabanov today are two different people. He got upset with me for calling him a 'hedgehog' in one of my old interviews. But he did look like a hedgehog in those days. His eyes were those of a frightened child. He was modest and kept looking around him nervously. Now he is different. He's grown long hair though he has lost some on the crown of his head. Most importantly, he has changed inside. He has started holding his shoulders back and gained confidence. He says: "I don't need actors to play, I need them to be present". At first he was shaving off my theatricality. Then I got used to him and began to feel what he wants better. When making Of Freaks and Men, I felt there were not enough emotions, I wanted either to burst into laughter or smack my lips. Once I was brave enough to tell him: "Let me add a bit of fire here". He said: "No". He keeps putting the fire out in me, all the time.
Despite all this I am glad I have been an object of his creative work. Every actor dreams of coming across a director he could call 'mine'. I know, he will never let me down, make me feel ashamed or do anything bad to me. He can behave in a strange way and can be complicated or even pretentious and over-elaborate with me. But he never does anything bad.
Alright, I am just an actor while his films are shown around the world and were selected for Cannes three times... But he never was arrogant with me, I just didn't let him. Perhaps, he is a little afraid of me - I don't know.
... It's hard and interesting for me to work with him; and I trust him. As long as Balabanov keeps calling me into the world of the art of cinema, I am ready to answer and work with him. I will live with a hope of success. And of course, I won't betray him. And should he dig out another 'sukhorukov' and I, with my bald head, be left behind - I will be upset but not offended.
...
This debut feature from festival discovery Alexei Balabanov could be described as a purgatorial allegory - whether for man or Russia, it's hard to say.
...
Balabanov made a faithful version of 'The Castle' in 1994, and that has left a greater mark: here he conjures up a world of Kafkaesque hostility and minatory mystery where only a blind man with a donkey and a fallen aristocratic woman offer the protagonist any amicable communicative signs. Could these be ironic reminders of the balms of religion or the lost certainties of the old social order? For sure, if his wanderings through these remains, relics and ruins are through a modern Russia, it must be some kind of madhouse.
The director employs black and white most expressively, whether in exquisite gliding crane shots swooping you up from decrepit cellar arches to discover the grand snowy vista of the palace square, or in claustrophobically framed dark interiors, where the camera will often alight and pause, affectingly, on an object - a dancing-ballerina jewel box - before moving on. Similarly, his mood effects are emphasised by canny use of discordant, non-naturalistic sound and old 78 records. This is an extraordinarily well realised doom-lover's playground, the oneiric existential gloom making way only for Svankmajer-like surrealism.
...
Birgit Beumers teaches Russian at Bristol University and is an expert on the work of Alexei Balabanov.
...
What the film does in retrospect - it gives us a great many clues to the work of Alexei Balabanov and his contemporary work: the two last films that he has made. That is Of Freaks and Men and Brother.
Presenter: As you say he went on to make other films, and particularly Brother, which became a huge success in Russia and was also very well noticed and well received in the West: prizes at film festivals and so on. But it's very different, is it not?
...
Presenter: And given the collapse of the Russian state, is it possible for a filmmaker like Balabanov to work in his own country? I noticed that the sequel to Brother is being made in the United States, which might be a function of the plot, but might also have something to do with what has happened to the industry. -
3. KINO KINO! - Happy Days
www.dothtm.boltblue.com/main3. - [Cached]Published on: 7/8/2005 Last Visited: 2/21/2007
HAPPY DAYS, a film by Alexei Balabanov, starring Viktor Sukhorukov, inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett.
...
Based on works by Samuel Beckett, Happy Days is the first feature by Alexei Balabanov, one of the most promising new European directors.
...
- About Alexei Balabanov
...
- Viktor Sukhorukov, the star of Happy Days and other Alexei Balabanov films on his work with Alexei Balabanov
...
ABOUT ALEXEI BALABANOV
'Balabanov is one of the world's great contemporary film-makers'
The Independent
Alexei Balabanov came to film-making in 1987, when he undertook the Higher Course in Film Directing and Scriptwriting at the renowned State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, at the age of 28. Born in Sverdlovsk in the Urals in 1959, he graduated in Modern Languages, then served as a military interpreter in Africa and the Middle East. He subsequently returned to Sverdlovsk, where he worked as an assistant director at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio.
After graduating from film school, he spent a brief period directing documentary before settling in St. Petersburg to join the New Russian Cinema movement at the Lenfilm Studio.
Balabanov immediately impressed critics at Cannes in 1992 with his feature film debut, Happy Days, which won five national awards. In 1995 his short, Trofim, won the Message to Man award for Best Short Feature.
His stylish thriller, Brother, was Russia's biggest box office hit of 1997. It was awarded the Second Prix and Fipressi at the Torino Film Festival, and was screened at Cannes and at the London Film Festival.
...
Balabanov's 1998 feature Of Freaks and Men was presented at Cannes.
...
The film has received national awards for photography, sound and Best Director for Alexei Balabanov.
Balabanov has just finished filming English-language Brother-2 which is due for completion in April 2000. Brother-2 follows the protagonist of Brother on his trip to America.
...
VIKTOR SUKHORUKOV, THE STAR OF HAPPY DAYS AND OTHER ALEXEI BALABANOV FILMS ON HIS WORK WITH ALEXEI BALABANOV
...
Balabanov of Happy Days and Balabanov today are two different people. He got upset with me for calling him a 'hedgehog' in one of my old interviews. But he did look like a hedgehog in those days. His eyes were those of a frightened child. He was modest and kept looking around him nervously. Now he is different. He's grown long hair though he has lost some on the crown of his head. Most importantly, he has changed inside. He has started holding his shoulders back and gained confidence. He says: "I don't need actors to play, I need them to be present". At first he was shaving off my theatricality. Then I got used to him and began to feel what he wants better. When making Of Freaks and Men, I felt there were not enough emotions, I wanted either to burst into laughter or smack my lips. Once I was brave enough to tell him: "Let me add a bit of fire here". He said: "No". He keeps putting the fire out in me, all the time.
Despite all this I am glad I have been an object of his creative work. Every actor dreams of coming across a director he could call 'mine'. I know, he will never let me down, make me feel ashamed or do anything bad to me. He can behave in a strange way and can be complicated or even pretentious and over-elaborate with me. But he never does anything bad.
Alright, I am just an actor while his films are shown around the world and were selected for Cannes three times ... But he never was arrogant with me, I just didn't let him. Perhaps, he is a little afraid of me - I don't know.
...
This debut feature from festival discovery Alexei Balabanov could be described as a purgatorial allegory - whether for man or Russia, it's hard to say.
...
Balabanov made a faithful version of 'The Castle' in 1994, and that has left a greater mark: here he conjures up a world of Kafkaesque hostility and minatory mystery where only a blind man with a donkey and a fallen aristocratic woman offer the protagonist any amicable communicative signs.
...
Birgit Beumers teaches Russian at Bristol University and is an expert on the work of Alexei Balabanov.
...
What the film does in retrospect - it gives us a great many clues to the work of Alexei Balabanov and his contemporary work: the two last films that he has made. That is Of Freaks and Men and Brother.
Presenter: As you say he went on to make other films, and particularly Brother, which became a huge success in Russia and was also very well noticed and well received in the West: prizes at film festivals and so on.
