Marina Razbezhkina and her School of Documentary Films

Marina Razbezhkina and her School of Documentary Films

Here we go again.

It’s East v West again, the cold war revisited. Mutual suspicion and distrust, escalating hostility.
At a time like this we need more than ever a thoughtful restrained reflective voice. Intellectual clarity and integrity. The voice of Marina Razbezhkina, Russia’s leading female documentary film-maker.

Her unofficial personal “manifesto” couldn’t be clearer. As she said in a recent interview with Russian Voice of America, when asked to sum up her films, “…authentic Russian life, the life of simple Russian people. I want to get away from politics. We take our cameras up close to the person, without trespassing on his personal space…..we set out to deal with the real person and his real space.”

Russian society is becoming ever more polarised, discontent is rising, but MR is famously apolitical. Unlike so many thinkers and intellectuals throughout Russian history, her “hunting for reality” does not involve grandiose schemes for utopia. She has no time for glib political clichés or simplistic moral scenarios. She is more concerned with focusing on the individual. Unlike many of her peers, she tries to avoid preaching. She takes life as she finds it, and quietly presents her findings to us, her audience.

As the veteran director of Russia’s only independent film school, her influence and legacy is secure. Many of her young protegés are winning awards and acclaim around the world. Her students’ films speak for themselves but they also speak for her.

Watch those films and listen to what she has to say.

Tickets for the master classes:

25.05  19.00 – 22.00 HUNTING FOR REALITY: Film&Politics and Screen

26.05  11.00 – 16.00 HUNTING FOR REALITY: I-movie

27.05  11.00 – 16.00 HUNTING FOR REALITY: The other

28.05  11.00 – 16.00 HUNTING FOR REALITY: Complex people