An experimental black-and-white meditation on the complex, ever-changing relationship between a filmmaker and his subject matter.
The narrative, which is devoid of any conventional plot, seems entirely based on the performers’ improvisation. But there are enough clues to suggest that the film is meant as a cautionary tale about artists who get too intimately involved with their material. Indeed, the filmmaker gets so close to his recorded event that at the end he loses all detachment and himself becomes an object and a victim. —Variety Film Reviews
Evgenii Iufit (Yevgeny Yufit) was born in 1961 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In the early 1980s he began working as a painter and art photographer. In 1985 he set up the first independent film studio in Russia, MZHALALA FILM, which brought together artists, writers, directors and others sympathetic to radical aesthetic experimentation.
At this studio Iufit made a number of films which have been shown at the world’s major film festivals including Montreal, Locarno, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Moscow. His film, Daddy, Frost is Dead, was awarded the Grand Prix at the Rimini Film Festival in Italy. Iufit’s paintings and photographs have been shown in major exhibitions of contemporary Russian art since 1985, at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunstahalle, Dusseldorf; Kunstverein, Hanover, and The Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City. Works by Iufit are to be found in museums, galleries, and private collections both… read more