Drawing inspiration from Alexander Pushkin's “A Feast in Time of Plague” – outside the plague rages, inside a feast is in progress - the Paris-based film-maker collective "Ataka 51" captures an artfully arranged sinking ship metaphor: the threat is there from the start, implies its existence with a quiet knocking and rumbling, at some point the ground begins to move, first the instruments fall to the ground, then the people. In the end they have lost control of themselves and everything else. This was the case beforehand, but back then you could still carry on as if there was a perfect world deep inside your own soul. That too is over now.
" In times of massive change, in times of war and repression everyday life begins to slip away. The past floats up into the present and the future, transparent and unattainable. Strange events take place and unspeakable forces come to life. At first it is hardly noticeable, but overtime it becomes larger than life itself" (Quote from the website of the collective).
HYMN OF THE PLAGUE was awarded the Pardino d’Argento at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.
Text: Bernd Buder
Supporting film for AN ORDINARY LIFE // UNE VIE ORDINAIRE (Alexander Kuznetsov, FR/CH 2024, 93 min)
05.11.2024 | 19:30 | Glad-House (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
06.11.2024 | 12:00 | Glad-House (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
Sergei Medvedev
Stanislav Paushev, Artem Slesarev, Andrey Levin
Nastassia Bezrukova
Leonid Fedorov, Vladimir Martynov
Alexander Epikhov, Dimitri Gorbaty and Philipp Ivanov - Originally from Moscow and now based in Paris, Ataka51 is a film collective consisting of Dimitri Gorbaty, Philipp Ivanov, Alex Epikhov, and Sergei Medvedev. They first met at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), while Gorbaty was at the Moscow School of New Cinema. Since its formation, the group has developed short films, videos, and live performances. Its members see the world as an ever-expanding system of signs—science, politics, reality and fiction, human and non-human objects.Please note that this is a collective portrait of the group — they have combined their personal bios into one, the same with photo.