VGIK and Mosfilm
With the arrival of Soviet cinema in Russia in 1919, two major film institutions appeared in Moscow: the VGIK and the Mosfilm studio. The State Film Institute or VGIK is the first film school in the world and the most prestigious in Russia. As early as 1920, director Lev Koulechov joined VGIK as a professor (he later became one of the directors of the institution) and created an experimental laboratory where the director researched techniques of directing, framing, acting and editing. In 1928, director Sergei Eisenstein also became a professor at the Institute and taught the first course in directing. Among his most renowned students at the VGIK are the actress Galina Polskikh(Romance in Moscow, 1963), the director Alexander Sokurov(Russian Ark, 2002; Sun, 2005) and the genius Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris, 1972; Stalker, 1979). The Mosfilm studio, which was also founded in 1920, is truly in the tradition of Soviet cinema. At the time, this cinematic genre was the bearer of a notable craze supported by enthusiastic filmmakers. Silent films until the 1930s had their hour of glory. Some even speak of the golden age of Russian cinema. Thus Mosfilm participated in the production of Soviet masterpieces such as Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin (1925) or Mikhail Romm's Ball of Suffering (1934). Mosfilm then fell into the hands of propaganda and produced works to the glory of the Stalinist system such as Ivan Pyriev's The Cossacks Kuban (1949) or Mikhaïl Tchiaoureli's The Fall of Berlin (1950). Among the renowned works produced by the studio are three works by Tarkovsky: Solaris, The Mirror and Stalker. Today, the studio is gradually coming back to life, after a slow period in the 1990s following the fall of the USSR. There is a museum dedicated to cinema on the studio premises, which can be visited. In 2012, producer Gennadi Kostrov and director Dmitri Mamulla founded a new institute: the Moscow School of New Cinema. The opening of this institution aims to offer future filmmakers a new vision of cinema.
Trip to Moscow
Among the most beautiful Russian works dedicated to the capital, we find first of all Eldar Ryazanov's Young Girl without Address (1957), a true classic of Soviet comedy. The young Katya quarrels with her grandfather and runs away to prove her independence. At the same time, she is sought all over Moscow by Pasha, a young man she met on the train. The transient lover knows only the name of his sweetheart: Katya Ivanova... the most common name in the USSR. In 1963, Gueorgui Danelia directed Romance in Moscow. A true ode to the Moscow of the 1960s and Soviet youth, this film features two young workers walking around the city for a day. It is an opportunity to see the images of a Moscow in turmoil, capital of the Soviet ideal under construction. We see the Noviy Arbat under construction, the Red Square criss-crossed by cars and a large record store besieged by enthusiastic music lovers thirsty for Tchaikovsky and Robertino Loreti. In 1979, the Mosfilm studio produced Moscow does not believe in Vladimyr Menchov's tears. The story is built around the fate of three friends who come to Moscow to study and find their Prince Charming. The film takes place over a period of 20 years (from 20 to 40 years) and shows the changes that take place in the lives of the protagonists, as well as in that of Moscow's Soviet society. This melodrama won an Oscar in 1981. The beginning of the 1980s brought Tatiana Lioznova's The Carnival(1981) and The Pokrovsky Gate (1982), in which director Mikhail Kozakov takes us through all the main streets of 1950s Moscow and introduces us to the subtleties of the Soviet soul. More recently, let us mention Nikita Mikhalkov's 12 (2007, presented at the Venice Film Festival the same year), Dmitri Kisseliov's The Black Lightning (2009) and Chris Gorak's Russian-American co-production The Darkest Hour (2011). In 2014, Vasily Serikov will release 22 Minutes, a military action feature. Inspired by the 2010 hostage-taking of a Russian ship in the Gulf of Aden (Somalia), the film is partly shot in Moscow. Also in 2014, Nikita Mikhalkov is making Sunstroke and thus offers us magnificent shots of the Volga.
Internationally
Since 1909, the capital of Russia has been the star of the documentary film Moscow Under the Snow by Frenchman Joseph-Louis Mundwiller. Divided into four parts, this documentary shows a typical Moscow through the Kremlin Bridge, the Marshal Bridge and Petrovsky Park. In 1994, Marcello Mastroiani and Sophia Loren pass through the capital in Robert Altman's Prêt-à-porter. This work, whose plot takes place in the "cruel" world of fashion, received a nomination for best film as well as for best supporting actress (for Sophia Loren) at the 1995 Golden Globes. In 2010, the famous Leo Tolstoy is in the spotlight in the film by American Michael Hoffman (who directed A Midsummer Night's Dream or Gambit: English-Style Scam): Tolstoy, the Last Fall. Shot partly in Moscow, the work focuses on the Russian writer's last years (camped by Christopher Plummer), marred by his complicated relationship with his wife (camped by Helen Mirren). Plummer and Mirren both receive an Oscar nomination for their performance in this sensitive work. Two years later, the blockbuster Resident Evil: Retribution divides its filming to the four corners of the world and passes through Moscow's Red Square. Paul W.S. Anderson reunites actresses Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez and Sienna Guillory in this fifth adaptation of the eponymous video game series. More recently, director Oliver Stone visited Moscow for his film Snowden (2016). This work is based on the true story of Edward Snowden, a former employee of the CIA and NSA, who disclosed top secret information about the NSA listening system. Edward Snowden, already at the heart of the documentary Citizenfour (2014), has been living in exile in Moscow since 2013. At the genesis of the project, Snowden thus met Stone in Russia, who was then driven by the desire to return to a committed cinema. In this spirit, Stone directed the documentary Conversation with Mr Putin (2017), during which the director interviews Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The film's critics are virulent, blaming Oliver Stone for being too kind to the director. In 2019, Luc Besson arrives in the Russian capital for the purposes of his film Anna, which he describes as a mix between his works Nikita (1990) and Leon (1994).
