“I’m going down to the grave, blessed”: the premiere of the last film with Vladimir Menshov caused a stir in Moscow 09/07/2023, 06:30

One of the main premieres this fall took place in the Khudozhestvenny cinema in the capital. Here they screened the film “It Happens to People”. It was filmed for several years, the actress of one of the main roles, Katerina Shpitsa, told the VOICE journalist about it.

“We shot the first part of this movie during the pandemic,” the actress said. – And the second part – after the death of Vladimír Menšov. – That is why the frames with his portrait in the mourning frame unfortunately turned out to be genuine. After the death of Vladimír Valentinovič, we realized his wish – to shoot the second part and thus shoot a full-length film.

The tape became the directorial debut of Valery Belotserkovsky, who previously had only one success in the cinema – the production of the film Silver Lily of the Valley. He told how this new work was born.

“We had an idea to film a short story, perform poetry with friends and with a voice-over,” explained Belotserkovsky. – Then I realized that what happened according to the script could not be played for ordinary, normal people. We need great actors. I did not take it very seriously until the moment when a great actor, director and just a person Vladimir Valentinovich Menshov appeared. If it weren’t for Menshova, none of this would have happened. We would shoot what turned out to be the first part of this movie. But he said: “This is a new word in art. And you have to do a whole meter for the audience to see it.” In fact, it happened as in Pushkin: “The old man Derzhavin noticed us and descended into the coffin and blessed us.” We are proud that this great man participated in our film.

Valery talked about the main feature of melodrama – all the actors are silent, it is a film without dialogue. He offered to become the second director to his long-time friend Karen Hovhannisyan, who made more than 30 films and TV series, including “I Stay”, “Five Brides”, “A Gift with Character”.

“We all really enjoyed this story,” Karen assured. “And we invited super professional artists that I’ve worked with before. We found brave people who are not afraid of Valery. And Valera can scare. Of course, the most dangerous of the actors is Mikhail Gorevoy, it’s scary to be next to him.

The “It Happens to People” tape is very unusual indeed. Instead of dialogue, her characters express their thoughts behind the scenes in beautiful poetic lines. It is noteworthy that the episodic roles were played by Konstantin Khabensky – a bartender and Alexander Robak – a taxi driver. And at the center of the plot is a theater director (Mikhail Gorevoy). His wife-actress (Katerina Shpitsa) cheats on him with the actor of the main role in the play (Sergey Ugryumov). In a fit of desperation, the director rapes his wife’s friend (Jekaterina Vilková). Soon after, she meets the love of her life (Kirill Kyaro) and gives birth to her first child. But the doctor (Konstantin Lavronenko) performs a DNA test and shocks her with the result.

The girl’s parents are played by Galina Polskikh and Vladimir Menshov. Lyubov Tolkalina has a connecting role in the tape – she is betrayed by both men with whom she started a relationship. However, even this girl has a chance to find personal happiness. In general, the melodrama with Yuri Stoyanov, Alexander Baluev, Evgeny Dyatlov and other famous actors turned out to be charming. Most of the performers attended the premiere. The film will be released on September 14.

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