“We are not fighting with each other, but with vodka.” Interview with Zolotarev, author of the script “A Child’s Word” Screenwriter Zolotarev called the story of Russian tennis players at the 2024 Olympics interesting 08/09/2024, 08:11

— Andrey, did you like today’s public speech? Do you take something from such meetings or are they all similar?

“They are similar and different at the same time.” I think I only began to understand how a screenwriter works when I started teaching and explaining. Because until you verbalize the principles of your work, they are kind of floating around in your head but they don’t really exist.

Only verbal narration allows us to understand what is really happening. This is the kind of social activity that is needed to attract the regional audience to this profession. Because the film industry is one of the few areas that can exist fully in a certain region. Not necessarily in Moscow. Not everyone has to rush to Moscow to be a great screenwriter. You can be a great screenwriter anywhere, including the Arctic. It is very important to understand this and convey it to the regional audience.

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Denis Kolyasnikov

— Tell us about your role at the Sixth Film Festival. How does your script lab work?

“I try to do an intensive course with the boys, where I explain the rules of the game as I see them. It’s short but very comprehensive. They listen to lectures, write their papers, rewrite their previous papers, and get as much feedback as possible from me. And most importantly, they get feedback from their peers.

Because it’s not just me telling them, it’s also important for the people who work with them to give feedback on their work. The emotional response you get is very important.

— How do you evaluate the work of this year’s finalists? Maybe you have identified something special for yourself?

– Good job, normal. But the scheme is this: academic articles that they send, you cross them out and move on. This is used as a passport to the profession – I read and see that a person can write. And with these works they can continue to do whatever they want.

– Can something surprise you? What factors need to come together for you to say “Wow!”?

– This happens often. There are wonderful scenarios that you read and think that it is very cool, cool, new, unexpected. Creating a scenario is not a self-consuming topic, but we are already barely dragging on with our last strength and we do not understand what to do. New scenarios and new topics appear regularly. First, because our memory is short, we forget very quickly what happened in the past, and it seems to us that it is new. But it works the same way, we get an emotional charge. Second, sometimes themes and meanings that did not exist before actually arise.

— The scenario lab’s additional description states that it is important for students not to touch on topics such as guns, violence, suicide, etc. Where is the best place to start?

– From blunt subjects. This is because any novice, when entering a scenario for the first time, will always use the sharpest weapon to create conflict immediately. The scenario is just a conflict zone. If you can’t create it without a weapon, then you have a problem. You are a complete scriptwriter.

There were the most powerful writers in literature who knew how to create a multi-volume conflict based on the fact that my aunt was coming soon and what I was going to do when she arrived. You see, no one pulled a gun there. That’s the skill of dramaturgy. That’s what a student should be able to do. And only then can you give him a gun.

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Andrey Zolotarev at the Sixth Film Festival

Denis Kolyasnikov

— Why is it important for you not only to create and create scenarios, but also to teach and pass on knowledge?

— Because first of all, when I put it into words, I begin to understand something better myself. Secondly, we are not competing with each other because we have a special situation. Especially for me, as the scriptwriter Zolotarev, it is useful for other scriptwriters to be calm. Because if they make a good film, the audience will say that Russian cinema is good. We are not at war with each other, we are at war with vodka. We need the audience to go to the cinema, not to drink vodka. For that you need to make a lot of good films.

— Why is the profession of screenwriter so rare? What scares potential applicants?

— Low average ambition among candidates for screenwriting. Because there is a general disdain for the profession of screenwriting. Nobody really knows what it is. A candidate who enters film school knows much more about the profession of director and producer than about the profession of screenwriter. They are more visible because they are media professions. Everyone wants to be an actor. Very few people want to be screenwriters. Because they know nothing about it. This low awareness is a barrier.

— You said in a public meeting that you don’t believe in books that tell you how to write screenplays. So how are screenwriters trained?

— I believe in dramaturgy and the need to revise finished texts. There is no need to learn to write. It will not teach you to write. There are no books that tell you how to write. There are books that tell you where the problems are in the script.

— You also said that you get cortisol-inspired by doing work at the last minute. Do you think it’s worth fighting that?

– Costs (smiles).

-Can you fight?

– NO.

— Why are people now interested in mysticism and fairy tales? Do you think this can distance the audience from reality?

– Of course it can be. These are escapist genres, but they have always been interesting. There is nothing that would interest everyone at the moment. This happens almost always, because people are very attracted by the opportunity to make something out of nothing, to “cheat” a little bit of this life and to get something mystically that is not available in reality. Every person wants this. Therefore, all mystical topics are very relevant.

— There’s a feeling that when you were creating the script for “100 Years Ahead,” you were guided by the actors because they were chosen very organically. What was it really like?

— We wrote the script first, then adjusted it to suit the actors.

— Are your opinions taken into account when choosing actors?

“They told me who would be there, and I was very happy.” There was such a plan. Of course, sometimes I make suggestions to someone, but I am not the producer of “One Hundred Years Ago”. There are very professional guys there – Sasha Andryushchenko, Misha Vrubel. There is no point in reaching under their arm and saying: “No, wait a minute, let’s still try Yura Borisov”. They will understand that if I am not there, Yura Borisov is needed.

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Egor Moskvitin, Mikhail Troynik and Andrey Zolotarev at the Sixth Film Festival

Sixth Film Festival press service

— You announced that a mystical series will be shot in Yekaterinburg and you mentioned that it is important to shoot in the regions. Why is it important if you can use, for example, less well-known and cheaper areas of Moscow or St. Petersburg?

— Stories have to be based in a specific place. As an audience, we want to see a reasonably authentic story. And a mystical story needs the credibility of everything but mysticism. Everything around us has to be so real that we believe in what’s happening there. You can’t tell stories as if they’re in the middle of nowhere. [непонятно где. — «Газета.Ru»]. They should not be just in an abstract Russia or in a forest. It is very desirable to place it on a specific street with specific houses in a specific city.

It seems to me that Yekaterinburg is unfairly deprived of a large number of cinema projects. There is a film studio here, which is very rare. In my opinion, we no longer have such studios in the East. And this is very, very wonderful. It seems to me that the Sverdlovsk Film Studio should be supported as actively as possible.

— With rare exceptions, films are shot somewhere beyond the Urals. Have you ever been to the Far East and thought about shooting there?

– Yes, even this year I have been to Kamchatka many times, to Vladivostok, to the North. I fly there constantly. We were filming a feature film called “Partner” in Vladivostok. Although it was a long time ago. Now we plan to shoot, including in Kamchatka.

— If you had decided, would there be a continuation of the series “Oğlanın Sözü”?

– I won’t tell. I can’t talk about it because the producers will curse at me.

— How did the idea of ​​filming the story about the Kazan gangs come about?

— Zhora came to me [Крыжовников, режиссер сериала «Слово пацана. Кровь на асфальте». — «Газета.Ru»]. “Let’s write a movie about bandits?” he says. I thought: “I’m crazy and good.” This person is as far away from any legal issues as possible, because this is absolutely not like him. Andrey Nikolayevich [настоящее имя Жоры Крыжовникова. — «Газета.Ru»] – he is an addicted person, and I thought he would lie down, come to his senses and do something normal. But he convinced me to read Robert Garayev’s book, and I realized that the world described there was a really interesting space to tell the story of people who are deprived of their own values ​​and separated from everything around them.

— About the unmade film “Russian Five”. You said that you really liked this script. Why does it evoke such feelings?

— It seems to me that their characters turned out to be very interesting and lively. The story of how we taught this world to play hockey is really great. The hockey players of the “Russian Five” had a great impact on the game in general. This is the drama of people who were torn from their homeland, accused of treason. The same people carry Russian culture and instead of assimilating what they have reached, they assimilate it.

— The other day, young Russian tennis players Mirra Andreeva and Diana Schneider won silver medals at the Olympics under the neutral flag, losing to experienced Italians. At the same time, there was drama due to criticism of Russian athletes and the ban on communicating with journalists in their native language. How do you comment on this situation and the restrictions imposed on Russians in international sports?

“This is surprising and very characteristic of our reality. It seems to me that in principle In the beginning, competitive sports were needed to stop wars. So sports are a glorification of war.

We go to a football match to fight and kick the ball so as not to kill each other. That’s the main thing. This whole wonderful community that is pushing Russia away from international sports, it seems, is declaring that aggression should be reduced. But that’s exactly why they are increasing aggression. It seems to me that this is just everyday stupidity. I don’t know how to characterize it.

— As for the history of tennis players, do you think it would make an interesting movie?

– It’s hard to say yet. But the conditions are interesting.