A screen version of the last novel by Fazil Iskander about love, forgiveness and soul Automatic translate

MOSCOW. The movie Kira Kovalenko “Sofichka” based on the novel by Fazil Iskander was released.

On July 31, 2016, the phrase of one of the characters in the story of Fazil Iskander “Parking of a person” was quoted by many. About wisdom, which is nothing but a mind insisted on conscience. Is it possible to find more accurate and capacious words about the great man and writer who left that day.

The others, in consolation and instruction, were books, wise, warm, ironic, multi-layered, like life itself. With a reminder that the best cure for suffering is creation, and true responsibility can only be personal. That freedom is an unconstrained self-restraint and sensitivity to the freedom of another. That cruelty is the courage of cowards, and you can spit on chains that cannot be cut, and then they will rust. That decency is non-participation in meanness under any authority.

"Sofichka" is Iskander’s last novel, one of his most powerful and piercing works. The story of a young woman who has preserved her inner light, dignity and desire to help people, despite the trials - the death of her beloved husband, arrest, bullying in the NKVD, link. Able to forgive a person who has broken her life. The history of a people that survived collectivization and repression, but did not lose optimism and love of life. Everything can be taken away, except for heady joy and reviving love of work and the belief that you can come to something if Bolsheusy dies. The visionary words embedded in the mouth of the dying old Khubut are the position and philosophy of life of Iskander himself. And the light at the end of the tunnel, despite the sad ending, but let failures, injustices, the shame of history and sins remain in the past.

The film "Sofichka", shot in the Abkhaz language and dedicated to the memory of Iskander, was completed last year. Fazil Abdulovich managed to see only a draft version of the picture of Kira Kovalenko, a graduate of the director’s workshop of Alexander Sokurov. The works of his students who studied in a single course, recruited by the director at the Kabardino-Balkarian University in 2011, were successfully demonstrated at various film festivals in Russia and abroad. “Cramped” by Kantemir Balagov won the FIPRESCI Cannes Film Festival Prize, the Zerkalo Festival Grand Prix, the Grand Prix and the prize for best actress at the Pacific Meridian Film Forum.

The uniqueness of the workshop in Nalchik is that it provided a powerful incentive for the development of its own cinematography in the North Caucasus. Among the students of Sokurov are students from Chechnya, Dagestan, and North Ossetia. The story “Sofichka” was a red thread through the entire period of their training on the course - in excerpts and sketches. The film adaptation, for which the master received approval from the writer himself, was entrusted to Kira Kovalenko while still studying in the fifth year.

The shooting took place in the villages of Arasadzikh, Otap and Chlow, in which they managed to find authentic buildings of the beginning of the last century. Actors of the Abkhaz national theater and non-professionals took part in the filming.

Sofichka was released on November 23, and its world premiere took place in November 2016 in Tallinn. The film was awarded prizes for directing and best actress in a film forum in Dublin, and awards of several domestic festivals.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru