“His movies are about life and our life is huge.” Film director Nikolai Dostal dies at 77

Film director and screenwriter Nikolai Dostal died at 18:10 Moscow time on Wednesday, January 18, at the age of 76. According to Fontanka’s report, this was announced on social networks by her niece, actress Daria Dostal.

“Deadly silence inside me. I can’t breathe. My Uncle Nikolay Nikolayevich Dostal left last night. my favorite director. my precious man Dear …” – the artist wrote.

The Union of Cinematographers of Russia confirmed the death of Nikolai Dostal. According to the news of TASS, the death of the director was announced by his brother, producer Vladimir Dostal.

Dostal’s cause of death has not yet been disclosed. The director’s family and friends decide on the farewell and burial place.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Dostal was born in Moscow in 1946 in the family of director Nikolai Vladimirovich Dostal and cellist Jahantab Alievna Sarafi. His mother died the same year, and the boy was brought up by his father and stepmother, a circus artist, Natalya Androsova, the granddaughter of Nicholas I.

In 1971, Nikolai Dostal graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in journalism, and in 1981 at the age of 35 he graduated from the Higher Courses for Screenwriters and Directors (Georgy Danelia’s workshop).

In the cinema, Dostal made his directorial debut in the same 1981 – with the short film “Cold snapshot and snow expected”, based on the story of the land writer Vladimir Soloukhin.

Nikolai Dostal made 15 movies and TV series throughout his career. He received the Silver Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) for the tragicomedy Cloud Paradise. The 1992 comedy Little Giant of Big Sex gained immense popularity – in it a man tries to regain his strength, which was lost due to stress during the Stalinist repressions.

Dostal’s other famous works are the television series “Penal Tabur”, which became famous in the 2000s, and “Lenin’s Testament” based on the works of Varlam Shalamov. He also took pictures of “Peter on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven” and “The Monk and the Devil”. This film was the last directorial work of Nikolai Dostal, it was released in 2016.

In 1997, Dostal was recognized as an Honored Artist of Russia, and in 2008 he was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the Russian Federation. In 2012 she received the “Nika” film award for the series “Split”.

HORSE interview In 2017, Nikolai Dostal spoke on the Revizor.ru portal about the problems of modern Russian cinema.

“We have different movies. There are movies but no movie industry, no industry. People ask me, “Has our cinema revived?” We’ve never had a film industry as strong as in the US, and we don’t have it today. But there are great directors as well as good films.

It has always been so – and the USSR had and has had successes in the field of cinema noted by the international film community, and Russia today has them. But it is better to let cultural scientists and film critics talk about modern Russian cinema, and it is good for directors to shoot it, ”said he.

Dostal described the transitions from film to editing as the most striking moments of directorial creativity: “When creating a film for me, the most vivid feelings are always associated with the period when I finally got everything I wanted and switched to editing. Or to post production, as they now call it. When I entered the editing room, where no one but the editor and me were allowed in, and began working with him for a couple in our “operating room.” Here the schedules of the actors, the deadlines, the producer, the weather no longer dominate me … “.

Russian film actor Pavel Derevianko speech He said that with “socialbites.ca” Nikolai Dostal is a real and talented director.

“Nikolai Nikolaevich is literally the head of the old formation, the old guard. It’s no secret that earlier everyone was more talented. We had more talented writers, directors, and actors. There was much more talent than there is now. Nikolai Nikolaevich was a vivid confirmation of this. He made a lot of great movies. I watched “Cloud Paradise” and other films with great pleasure,” said the artist.

Derevyanko added that he worked with Dostal at the very beginning of his career.

“Of course it was a great pleasure because he is a real director who is talented, knows the details, understands all the nuances of working with an actor. He just talked, gave tasks, how he should behave. And the picture as a whole was controlling everything on the set. His films are about life, about people, about love, about betrayal. About everything. It’s about life and our life is huge.