East of the West - Competition 2011 / Generation P / Russia, USA 2011
An open-handed adaptation of the apparently unfilmable novel by Victor Pelevin about the Pepsi generation, one of whom is Babylen Tatarsky, a tobacconist turned successful PR man who, in Russia’s wild 1990s, lives his dream of the Sumerian goddess Ishtar.
After the break-up of the USSR Moscow opens its doors to foreign investors: finding a career is primarily a question of making clever use of an opportunity. Babylen Tatarsky starts out as a tobacconist, but an encounter with a former classmate leads him to the world of advertising. Pepsi Cola, Sprite, Parliament cigarettes – such products need to reach the consumer fast. Babylen turns out to be good at his job, and he gradually finds his way into the kind of PR which serves to promote not only goods, but people in social roles as well. In addition to the gloss of success, however, he is also driven by his passion for Near Eastern mythology, an experience heightened through use of hallucinogenic substances. This open-handed adaptation of Victor Pelevin’s cult postmodern novel caused a major stir after its screening in Russian cinemas. One reviewer declared: "This film successfully blows your mind.”
112 min / Color, 35 mm
International premiere
Director Victor Ginzburg
/ Screenplay Victor Ginzburg, Djina Ginzburg podle románu / based on the novel by Victor Pelevin
/ Dir. of Photography Aleksei Rodionov
/ Music Kaveh Cohen, Michael David Nielsen, Alexander Hacke
/ Editor Anton Anisimov, Vladimir Markov, Karolina Maciejewska, Irakly Kvirikadze
/ Producer Victor Ginzburg, Djina Ginzburg, Stas Yershov, Yuri Krestinskiy, Aleksei Ryazantsev, Jim Steele, Roger Trilling
/ Production Generation P, LLC
/ Cast Vladimiir Yepifantsev, Mikhail Yefremov, Sergei Shnurov, Oleg Takhtarov, Andrei Fomin, Alexander Gordon, Ivan Okhlobystyn, Andrei Vasiliev, Renata Litvinova, Andrei Panin
/ Contact Generation P, LLC
www: www.generationp.ru
Victor Ginzburg (b. 1959, Moscow) emigrated to the USA with his parents when he was 15. He studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and subsequently made several successful music videos featuring various artists (Belinda Carlisle, Jody Watley, Lou Reed). He debuted in film with the documentary The Restless Garden (Nyeskuchny sad, 1994) which, he states, reflects the spirit of his native Russia. The film was provocative for its eroticism and for its association of the trash music scene with the conceptual art coming out of Moscow’s avant-garde movement of the era. In later years he worked on domestic and foreign TV programmes, was involved in the film technology business, and wrote screenplays.
Generation P, LLC
10 Nineteenth Avenue, CA 90291, Venice
United States of America
Phone: +1 310 933 570 8
E-mail: [email protected]
Victor Ginzburg
Film Director
Djina Ginzburg
Producer
Andrei Fomin
Actor
Yuri Krestinski
Producer
Emilie Los
Producer
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