Andrés Duque's Oleg and the Rare Arts (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on MUBI, is showing from June 9 - July 9, 2017 as a Special Discovery.
I first met Oleg Nikolayevich Karavaichuk through his film scores. In Russia, no one would be able to physically recognize Karavaichuk, but everyone can identify his music. It’s a triumph of the artist, at least on a personal level, to remain alive but invisible. Karavaichuk doesn’t like people, he is a punk from another time—controversial, a defender of freedom and an enemy of money. This makes him a philosopher with visions about art that are incorruptible and unquestionable.
I felt a very strong compulsion to go there and register those truths, because nowadays I feel they are fading. I wanted to capture his words, his crazy way of associating ideas, his gestures and above all his music. As a whole, he is poetry.
But it was not easy to get the hermit out of his house. I spent two years looking for him, and trying to convince him to allow me portray him. I had the opportunity to finally meet him on a summer afternoon in Gorki Park, thanks to the help of Boris Alekseev and Karina Karaeva. Fate wanted it that way, it was a coincidence of blues. Nobody told us what to wear but we were all wearing the same color. He saw it as a good sign, maybe, because he approached us to have a chat.
In the film, I wanted to show how this artist managed to fly higher than any other bird. And in order to do it I could not cut him. It was all about locking a space, preparing everything so that he could feel inspired, and then shoot, improvisation. It was the only condition of this film.