Back on the 11th Anna (Altie), IceQueen and I went to the opening of the Russian Film Festival in Manhattan at the Director's Guild of American Theater. Sounds pretty flash doesn't it? Well it was. We dressed up reasonably formal and met up with Altie at the theater - we were late as usual, but that was ok because the organizers were even later in starting. Apparently lateness is not an issue in Russian culture (although I'd imagine it has its limits).

So we arrive at the theater and outside the entrance are those red velvet ropes strung between waist-height gold poles for crowd control like they have at 'important' social occasions (also at banks, but that doesn't sound as impressive). We march straight through the lingering crowd outside and right to the doors looking pretty important, where we inform the neandarthal-built Schwarzenegger-like military-haircut-guy at the door that our tickets are being held for us (Altie had already gone in) and he lets us in like we're VIPs. Nice entrance by the Weasels.

We walk through the foyer and into the theater itself, which is near full of well dressed people, including a fair contingent of peroxide blonds (hard to miss against all the black suits and jackets). There are three guys milling around with tv cameras with bright lights on top filming the entire occasion, and amongst it all we spot The Fishie (Altie) down on the left near the front with her parents who came along too. After some frantic hand signals we make our way to her, but due to lack of seats, Altie ends up moving to a single free seat one row forward while IceQueen and I sit behind her (and a little to her left). Nice of Altie to do that. Mr & Mrs Altie-parent ended up in the row behind us. As ya do. It wasn't a large theater, I'd say it held maybe 200 people.

Ok so we're sitting there waiting for things to start, then this lady comes up the front (Marina Kovalyov - President of the Russian-American Arts Foundation) and since this is the opening ceremony of the first annual film festival, it turns out that the top film and tv directors, producers and big-name actors from Russia are all there (hence all the tv cameras filming the occasion). So they all come up one by one and speak for a few minutes (with a translator assisting) and then one of them is given some big award for one of his films and everyone applauds and eventually the film begins.

The film is in Russian of course, with subtitles, fortunately. This film is.. well, I'll quote here:

It is a heart-breaking story of the love of two men for the same woman. One of them is a university lecturer in a provincial town, the other is ex-military. A common tragedy unites these two completely different persons who didn't even know each other. Their relations start when the husband (the university lecturer) finds a letter, from which he learns that his wife, who has recently died from a heart attack, had a lover, and that his beloved son is probably not his child.

The Russian film style is a little different from the usual flashy American stuff loaded with special effects, which made a refreshing change. Although the plot was a story of tragedy, it was actually pretty funny in parts where the two guys clashed again and again in various different situations, and yet sad at the same time, and the ending left you hanging, not knowing for sure who the real father was. You see, the son has a stutter which the ex-military guy's daughter also has, which is discreetly revealed about half way through the movie, and the plot thickens from there as the husband discovers more and more about the history of his wife's affair. If you get a chance to view it, go for it. The director is Valery Todorovsky for those interested.

Oh, forgot to mention that on the way in we were given a bag full of stuff (camera, salt & pepper shakers etc) supplied by one of the sponsors of the event. neat. A few days later we went to another film in the festival, but I'll tell you about that one later.