Leviathan producer named Russian leader

Alexander Rodnyansky’s Non Stop Productions, producer of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes winner Leviathan, is among nine production companies selected as ¨industry leaders¨ for 2014 by the Russian Cinema Fund (Fond Kino) for the allocation of $55m (RUB1.9bn) to be distributed among them as subsidies or repayable loans.

Leviathan will be the closing film at the weekend for this week’s ‘Kinotavr’ Open Russia Film Festival in Sochi, and Non Stop is also represented by Konstantin Buslov’s second feature Adventurers as part of the open-air programme 

The line-up of ¨leaders¨ also includes Igor Tolstunov’s company ProFIT, which has two films in Kinotavr’s main competition - Alexander Kott’s Test and Nigina Saifullayeva’s Whatayacallme -; Sergei Selyanov’s CTB - in Sochi with the animation feature Ivan Tsarevitch & The Grey Wolf 2; Fedor Bondarchuk’s Art Pictures which produced last year’s box-office hit Stalingrad; and the producer-distributor Central Partnership.

¨Leaders¨ from the 2013 list who were passed over in this year’s selection include producer-director Alexey Uchitel’s Rock Films which released his Break Loose last year and has Yuri Bykov’s new film Fool in the Sochi competition this week; and the Red Arrow (Krasnaya Strela) company who produced Alexander Veledinsky’s surprise box-office hit (and festival success) The Geographer Drank His Globe Away.

Omnibus railway project to be pitched

Alexander Mindadze, the director of the 2011 Berlinale competition film Innocent Saturday about the Chernobyl disaster, will serve as the artistic director for the omnibus film project Train set in the world of railways in the past, present and future.

Three young directors - Andrey Annensky, Artem Volchkov and Gala Sukhanova - will each direct a segment of the film and have chosen to adapt works by three contemporary Russian writers: Dmitry Bykov, Anna Starobinets and Victor Pelevin.

Pelevin’s name is known to readers outside of Russia, especially since his novels Generation P and Buddha’s Little Finger have been adapted for the cinema, the latter title currently being in postproduction for Berlin-based Rohfilm.

Liza Antonova will produce for Passenger Studio, and the project will be one of seven feature films presented at Kinotavr’s pitching forum on Friday (June 6).

A jury including producers Selyanov, Rodnyansky and Elena Lapina, and Vadim Smirnov of 20th Century Fox CIS will hear pitches by the producers and directors of other such projects as Alexey Nuzhny’s animation film Snegovik, Svetlana Baskova’s Temny, to be produced by the experimental production group Cinefantom, the webdoc Kod Goroda and the Ukrainian documentary Dovzhenko’s Diary. (ends)