Seminar on "Cinema and filmmakers: Alexander Sidelnikov, the oeuvre"

On Tuesday, 15 November, at White Hall of Russian Institute for Art History will be held the regular seminar of the series “Cinema and filmmakers “: “Alexander Sidelnikov, the oeuvre”.

Seminar moderator – RIAH Director, Dr. Habil. A.L. Kazin.

An interview with film director Valentina Gurkalenko, a story of a heritage, and the tragic death of “Lennauchfilm” filmmaker – Alexander Sidelnikov are in the program.

The brief about the author from Wikipedia:

Alexander Sidelnikov was born in 1955 in the Novgorod region in a family of teachers. He studied stage directing at the Leningrad’ Krupskaya Institute of Culture.

In 1982 he graduated from the VGIK (A.M. Zguridi). He used to work on a “Lennauchfilm” studio. Together with his crew members Aleksandr Sidelnikov has visited the most strained areas of the country: the Aral Sea, Magadan, Chelyabinsk radiation test site, Chernobyl contaminated areas of the Bryansk region.

He died at age of 38 while the filmmaking of a documentary about the events of 1993 in Moscow, during the storming of the Moscow White House.

In 1993 during the “Golden Knight” festival there were the Alexander Sidelnikov Award “For the Best Film Directing”established.

In memoriam of Aleksandr Sidelnikov there were devoted a several film works. In 1993, the director Nikolai Makarov has released a documentary “The Life and Death of Alexander Sidelnikov, a filmmaker.” For its part, Valentine Gurkalenko – the Aleksandr Sidelnikov widow, has released a documentary “The Rendezvous with eternity. Aleksandr Sidelnikov”,which entirely devoted to the person and work of the director. These includes the latest video footage, shot by the late cinematographer on the day of his death.

“In the most general, philosophical terms, all the films of Alexander Sidelnikov – are images of logos, the Russian idea in its Christian sense. It is not the concept and wording that we see on the screen – in front of us the very objective reality of the idea, which was built as a native Russian cultural-historical and even the domestic common cosmos.  Actually, this is the general substantive idea (pathos) and the through-plot action (story), his film, with respect to which a particular fable functioning of individuals and episodes serves as their documentation tool (including music).” (from the article of A.L.Kazin).

At the conclusion of the interview there held a presentation of A. Sidelnikov documentary “Vologda Romance” (1992, duration 1 hour 8 min.).