Famed Russian popstar Dima Bilan made his latest international appearance to promote the historical drama The Heritage of Love in which he makes his acting debut. Following a debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the film has made a number of stops across Europe. The latest promotional destination was in London at the Russian Film Week, a new cultural project dedicated to showcasing a wide array of Russian films.

With so much geopolitical tension and controversy surrounding Russia and its relations to other parts of the world, artists from and connected to the Russian filmmaking industry seek to use the arts as a means of educating the public to a more honest depiction of Russia that subverts the often cold stereotypes surrounding the nation and its people.

Filip Perkon (seen above in the blue suit) is the founder of the Russian Film Week/Golden Unicorn Awards and spoke at the press conference about the inspiration behind starting the event.

“We started out in March when the Russian ambassador and British counsel came along and had an idea to organise a series of screenings of Russian films. I gladly accepted the idea. I love Russian culture. I haven’t lived in Russia myself, my parents are Russian, I grew up in Sweden and London. So I thought, ‘Why not? Why don’t we do it?'”

After working out certain mechanics of organizing a film festival, the task at hand was to reach out and acquire Russian films to screen. Perkon was amazed at the level of response.

“We were overwhelmed by the interest of Russian studios wanting to show films abroad. We reviewed more than 200 films with our nomination committee.” This led to the founding of the Golden Unicorn awards as a means of recognising and honouring not only Russian filmmakers but filmmakers from abroad that choose to make films about Russia. Dima Bilan picked up a nomination in the category of Best Actor for his performance in The Heritage of Love.

Bilan’s popularity may have something to do with the significantly larger interest in The Heritage of Love in London, as the screening for it sold out in a mere 20 hours after going live on the festival’s website. He shares how though he has been to the UK many times before, this was his first time coming as an actor. He gave his address at the press conference, and answers to the questions he received, in Russian and used a translator to communicate so as to avoid the loss of important details.

“About the movie, for me it’s a story of my family. When I met the director Yuir Vasiliev and the producer Natalia Doroshkevich of this film for the first time, I understood directly where I was going because while talking about the time, the beginning of the 19th century, to my relatives, who told me the whole story of my great granddad who was among the Black Hundreds. This story is literally my family’s story. There are a lot of confirming documents, letters, presents, a chest, and my great granddad had to serve for only one year to become a nobleman. That’s why it was not only an acting experience, which used to be quite collective, it was a very important and exciting process for me.

And now we are here at this Russian Film Week, an amazing week, and I really wanna wish this event a longevity and a huge coverage in mass media, because I think that what we are doing here now is very important and this is what we talk about in the movie. Despite all the geopolitical views, ideas, thoughts, there is something that I truly believe in: it’s love, trust, feelings towards the people around us, people who live on this planet Earth. Of course, I’m incredibly happy that I have such an opportunity together with this amazing movie, an amazing director, wonderful crew, who are not impartial to this contact to people.”

Bilan’s avid following across so many countries is not only beneficial to the promotion of The Heritage of Love and Russian Film Week but serves as an example of the powerful cross-cultural connection art can create. Actress/filmmaker Dolya Gavanski spoke about the aim of The Heritage of Love and the general push for Russian films to reach an international audience.

“What we show with this festival is this urge or need to build bridges between cultures. One of the main things for us in supporting The Heritage of Love was part of a bigger project, a cultural project called Reconciliation, which seeks to bring understanding between different points of views, ideologies, and maybe look back into history. So we had a great time with The Heritage of Love so far. We opened it at the Cannes Film Festival, that’s where we launched it and Dima was there too. It was wonderful to discover he has huge fans all over Europe. The Swedish press was mad about interviewing him, and the Serbians, and so on. We’ve also had quite a few festivals, and we opened a festival in Italy which also focused on promoting cultural differences and through that also, bringing an understanding between cultures. We are delighted to be opening the festival tonight. We are very much interested in launching and exploring the international market for Russian films and Eastern European films.”

The Heritage of Love will be released in select UK cinemas in December 2016.

Ссылка

Watch the full press conference here (English subtitles available for all Russian answers):