Consumer is king

The day starts quite late. Whereas everybody wakes up around 11 am at the hotel, a funny French-Greek couple (Julien & Dimitris) only returns by midday from last night party.
We leave Yekaterinburg under a surprisingly warm and sunny weather (25°C). After the comfort of the first travel in kupe (compartments of 4 beds each), most of us will have to spend the next 60 hours in the 3rd class wagon... Impossible not to meet people then: quite an advantage when you are making documentaries!

After discussions with each group of 3 people facilitated by Matthieu during the first train journey, two sessions gathering three teams together each are held in the wagon-restaurant. The idea is that every team presents to the others its project and its evolution, the difficulties they are facing and get some feedbacks from the other groups.

The problem -and it's both annoying and eventually funny- is that the mere fact of discussing in the wagon-restaurant seems to cause a problem to the train employees. It needs a minimum of twenty minutes of negotiation with the wagon manager, who firstly didn't want to occupy the space -where we were the only consumers and did order drinks- and secondly didn't want to turn down -not to imagine off- the music. Consumer is king... in Japan!

The most organised group

On the first session held on the 31st evening, situations are diverse. The team composed of Denes, Leo and Ani seems quite confident and is following its initial idea of making a series of very short portraits of kids met in the different cities we journey too. “We are the most organised group”, as Ani (from Bulgaria) puts it with a mix of price and self-irony.

In another team, the one led by Jochem and composed of Marton and Guillaume, there seems to be an unspoken conflict. Whereas Jochem is pretty sure of sticking to his plan of collecting live music on the street and on the train, and putting it together in a sort of collage, Marton is not so sure that cutting a song in its middle and jumping to the next one will actually work. He'd prefer maybe less musicians portrayed, but whose songs would be given in extenso. As for Guillaume, he probably would like to establish a stronger contact with the people filmed than just asking them to play music.

The last group is facing another challenge, the quite common one of still looking for the core of its subject. Andrei's first idea came out of the reading of one article published in Pravda stating that McDonald's most flourishing business was to be found in Russia. The team, composed of Florian and Georgi, met difficulties in talking with the right person, especially food experts and fast food restaurants managers. That's why they just decided to insert a strong element of fiction into their documentary. Or even to twist completely the original format, by pretending that the all film they shoot is a sort of video report that an employee (played by Florian) hands to the German fast food company he's working for! The idea is to explore whether Russia is a favourable market to invest or not. No doubt that the approach is quite far from Medvedkin's films of the 30's, but the challenge is present! Let's see how it develops...

Press, press, press

For the two days in Yekaterinburg, our home base is the Dom Kino, “the House of Cinema”, which includes a multiplex cinema, a snack-restaurant and the office of the Ural Branch of the Film-Makers Union. The Head of Creative Programmes of the Union, the very kind Natalya M. Reshetnikova, constantly smiles and gives motherly looks to all the participants. Last but not least, she speaks English, something quite unusual for an over 40 year-old Russian woman. All in all, her person represents a great dose of comfort in the generally rough Yekaterinburg.

For the second time in few days, we are giving a press conference. It is now to the journalists of Yekaterinburg we are presenting the workshop. It might feel a little bit like the promotion of the project is taking over the project itself, but fortunately the press conference is not too long. Answers from media is very positive since three different TV channels are present. No doubt that the local connections of Nikita and the kind help of the Film-Makers Union of Russia has been of great support. The next day we see on TV a long report on the project followed by an interview on set with Nikita. The main press agency in Russia also released a news on Cinetrain: http://www.itartass.ur.ru/news/?id=39706

Now that the project gets famous... we just have to make good films!

Travelling in Eastern Europe

At the end of the day, several short films of the participants are screened at the Dom Kino along with one Cinetrain film made by Medvedkin. In the big cinema hall audience seems quite scarce, but there's still about 60 people coming just to watch unknown short films. The introducing speeches last even longer than the screenings themselves. Guillaume, who knows Russia as an insider (but still keeps a critical external look at it) explains that Russians love to thank everyone and firstly themselves. Self-appreciation or self-flattering! There's apparently even a specific verb in Russian for that!

The films include Snail Race by Monika from Poland; Forever Love by Andrei from Romania; Together by Denes from Hungary; and Track Change on which Marton, from Hungary too, was Director of Photography. By chance, three of the films are directly connected with the question of travelling. Only Snail Race deals with another issue, problems of non-communication within a couple (not an easy one!). The extravagant Track change takes place on a train (!!). A no man's land station somewhere between Hungary and Russia (one has to know that Hungary has no border with Russia, only to Ukraine). It notably includes scary Russian provodnitsa... The very stylised Together follows young Ukrainian men, illegally emigrating to Budapest. More of a comedy, Forever Love tells in a humorous tone a tragedy of exile. Returning in Romania from abroad, a young man discovers that the fiancé he was planning to marry made it up with his best friend...

Parking discos & Topless pubs

Like many industrial cities (Liverpool, Detroit, Berlin, etc.), Yekaterinburg possesses quite a vibrant music scene and night life. Luckily, we are spending our Saturday night here. After long days of train & shooting, this night proves to be an excellent vector of group/cohesion building since everyone is in the mood for partying. Whereas most of us dance at the “Club 2ky” and surprisingly discover on the bill at 5 am that we drunk a whole bottle of Baileys (!!), some venture to other venues.

Whereas the nearby “El Paso” is charming but boring and expensive with its topless waitresses, the 6th floor-located “Rai Club Paradise” appears to be a bit too much exclusive to accept us. After all, we look like backpackers: our skirts are not mini enough, and our shoes covered by too much of mud. If we have to keep one image of Yekaterinburg it should be definitely the one of the “Parking Club”: a true parking turned into a disco where you can enter by car and enjoy the music!

Birthday number one

After the excitement of the departure, it's time to measure the nerves of the 'provodnista' (the wagon manager). She already starts to get annoyed when some of us ask her one after the other why the toilets are locked (the train has to leave completely the Moscow agglomeration before the tracks can host the passengers' waste).

At midnight exactly, we are all gathered together in one compartment of the wagon (20 people in a place already a bit small for 4 people). We are making a surprise to Guillaume, who turns 25 on the 29th, and of course celebrate that with some vodka, but also whisky (brought from Scotland by Leo) and music played by Julien on his tiny guitar. For sure there's a little bit of noise, but the 'provodnista' -and later on the train conductor- get angry beyond expectations. Even some passengers complain. According to Shura (who is Ukrainian), there would not be so much fuss if we were Russians. A little expression of xenophobia or not, we are threaten of disembarkation from the train in the middle of the night. Nijni-Novgorod is certainly a nice city but our first destination is supposed to be Yekaterinburg...

Luckily for the group, unluckily for our future 'provodnistas', three of us will have their birthdays during the journey, and by chance we'll always be on train at these times. After Guillaume on the 29th, it will be up to Iris on the 2nd and to Matthieu on the 8th.

Films in gestation

After the stress of Moscow, the journey on train gives the opportunity for each group to discuss on the concept of their documentaries. It appears that the young European film-makers went for very diverse topics. Some are predominantly sociological ones. By tackling the themes of music and food, two groups are interested in discovering the social customs of Russians. Three groups share what could be labelled as a 'testimony approach'. Whether it consists in portraying children, collecting dreams or conveying the feelings of the Trans-siberian travel, they somehow put themselves in the inheritance of Medvedkin, which consists in giving the word to the people who usually don't have access to it. One film intends to be a mockumentary about Lenin, more details will come soon!

Arrival in Yekaterinburg

After 1 day and a half of travel we eventually arrive in Yekaterinburg, the first stop-over of the journey. We are joking over the main reason for staying in the city. Surely Yekaterinburg, as the capital of the Ural region, is situated just at the physical border between Europe and Asia. And this is probably relevant for our workshop. It's also & mainly true that Nikita, as a native of the city, has been the most convincing lobbyist!
Anyway, the train reaching Yekaterinburg certainly makes one person very happy: the provodnitsa, who eventually can get rid of us... We are welcomed at the station by two minibuses in which -surprisingly enough- we and our all equipment manage to fit.

I am a good man

Before getting a sleep, at about 2 a.m., we walk to one of these 24 hours-run shop for getting ourselves a drink. A thirty year old man, looking much more, is staying at the cashier and approaches Natasha. “I am a good man” he sadly says. His breath slightly smells alcohol. “I am just coming in this shop from time to time out of boredom. Could I come with you? I would like to practise my English.” And he immediately hands his business card to Natasha, not really expecting to get an answer to his question. 'I am a good man'. This sentence epitomises quite a great deal of this discrepancy of social relationships in Russia. How pathetic it is one has to justify himself, making such a statement as a self-introduction. 'I am a good man'.

Yaroslavsky Station

Today finally begins its journey. Even though there's a lot to do in Moscow since several films require materials which can only be shot in the capital, a certain importance is starting to be felt among everyone. It feels like one element is still missing to make the workshop complete and so unique: the train! Organisers are also eager to leave, since coordinating people in the hectic Moscow is quite a nightmare. More the day is advancing, more a certain febrility is filling the air at the 'Russian Institute', where finally all people gather at 7 pm to head for the Yaroslavsky Station and the first forty hours of train to Yekaterinburg.

Almost a red carpet

For documentary filmmakers, the approach to the people filmed is always crucial. One main rule is often to be as invisible as possible. For sure with all our bags and equipment, it would have been probably difficult to enter the train incognito. But with at least two TV crews filming our departure with flashy lights, it becomes mission impossible. The weather is perfect and the sunset beautiful.

For two years we have been designing and preparing the project (with more often than not, misunderstandings, difficulties, strong disagreements, and also never-ending Internet chat discussions), looking back there was a time when we thought the journey would never come. Still we often had this exact moment of departure in mind. Now that it's coming, emotion is palpable and the whole project eventually makes sense. 21:25. The train slowly moves. We wave Hannah and Tanya, who couldn't join us goodbye as they wish us well from the platform. We move, its really beginning.

Be Hooligans!

Moscow is certainly an exhausting city when it comes to transport, no matter if it's a public or a private one. Reaching the 'Dom Kino' (the House of Cinema), the place where we held our first press conference, felt like an odyssey this morning... No doubt the Trans-Siberian will be more comfortable. The location of the press conference appears very official, a large room where black & white framed pictures of famous Russian film-makers are hanged all over the wall. One can only notice that among the 50 or so portraits, only three are women.
Several TV channels and newspapers being present, the conference seems quite successful. Later on in the evening, the international radio channel “The Voice of Russia” also asks for interviews.

The meeting with press is immediately followed by a masterclass on Medvedkin given by Nikolay Izvolov, the best specialist on the director, who used to know Medvedkin – before the latter died in 1989, and Nikolay is also a good friend of Chris Marker, the French director who contributed in making Medvedkin known outside of Russia. In a way, the patronage of Nikoay Izvolov represents a kind of moral support to the project. The masterclass is symbolically hold in the very screening room where Medvedkin himself used to watch the rush materials of his films. The talk on Medvedkin appears to be pretty useful since many participants, despite the documents which were provided to them, seem to know very little about him.

The passion with which Nikolay speaks about Medvedkin is quite communicative. An energetic and romantic enthusiast, constantly inventing new ideas and considering cinema as a ground for discussion with the people, Medvedkin would have surely been an active member of NISI MASA, had the association existed at his time! For the record, it's useful to remember that 72 films were made in 1932 in the first year of the Cinetrain, when Medvedkin was running the moving studio. Most of the films were then shot in Ukraine... not exactly the road to Vladivostok!

When Nikolay is asked by one of the participants what would be his wishes and advise to us for our workshop, he ironically replies that he's not any kind of 'guru'. But immediately adds that most of the documentaries are nowadays completely uninteresting and boring. And that Medvedkin film were so great because he was behaving like a 'hooligan', I think he means what is known as gorilla style filmmaking. Whether or not the Russian equivalent of 'hooligan' encapsulates the same connotations as in English, 'hooligan film-makers' appears to be an interesting expression for Cinetrain 2008. Let's us be hooligans or gorillas!

How to keep the myth alive!

In the night we celebrate the beginning of the workshop after all crews have been spending the day discussing their films, location hunting or shooting. Happiness by Medvedkin is screened during this party.

The Moviement team had the good idea to invite an employee of the Railways Company to introduce us the 'Trans-Siberian experience'. The brave man, happy to be on stage and experiencing thereafter his 15 minutes of celebrity, has been giving his spare time during the last months trying to convince the company as an insider of giving a whole wagon for the Cinetrain crew. It was eventually a failure... At a time when the Trans-Siberian is one of the most comfortable train trips existing, which can even be a pleasant holiday for an average family of Europeans, the man is really putting an extra effort to present the famous train line as a true adventure. And explaining humorously on the importance of being nice with the 'provodnitsa' (the wagon manager), how to use toilets of the train or to get off when you have to jump more than one meter to reach the platform, etc.

The Russians are the first ones not only to keep their myths alive, but also all the sorts of clichés and stereotypes about themselves.

MOSCOW TIME ZONE

The Cinetrain workshop officially starts today. Yet some participants have already arrived in Moscow a few days ago. Monika, from Poland, is already shooting the film she's the camerawoman off. Together with Nikita (co-organiser of the project and director of one of the six documentaries), they went out of Moscow, looking for one of the numerous monuments dedicated to Lenin in Russia. Lenin is the topic their film is focussing on. This is the reason they are absent to the introduction meeting organised this afternoon in our headquarters during our stay in Moscow, the well-named “Russian Institute” (situated just few hundred meters from the Red Square)!

Just before this meeting, we had our first meal together in one of those popular Russian buffet restaurants. It didn't reassure so much Hannah and Shura, the workshop organisers from Moviement. Indeed, a little drama took place. Leo, from Scotland, found the food so disgusting (or, more exactly, overcooked) that he insisted on making a complaint and getting reimbursed. Of course such request has very little chance to get through here. And it didn't. Welcome to Russia! If there's problem with food already now, one better not imagine how it will turn into on the train in Siberia.

Apart from that, the project seems to start smoothly, everyone clinging quite well to each other. It has to be! We will be twenty people on the train, living 24/7 together for almost four weeks, sharing a high degree of intimacy. 14 boys & 6 girls, 14 countries represented. Everybody is surely happy to have been selected among the more than 120 applications received.

The introduction session aims at reaffirming the objectives of the workshop (we had several preparatory chat conferences via Skype in the last couple of months), to check the agenda and the material, and to arrange practical details. Thanks to the presentation of Guillaume, one of the members of Moviement, we all become acquainted with the Russian system of train timetables: all stations over Russia have to follow the Moscow time, despite the different time zones.

WE WISH TO THANK...

At the end of the meeting, we are greeted by Tanya, who has been of great support in the preparation of the project in Russia. Tanya works for Mirumir Studio. Along with NISI MASA and Moviement, the two promoters of the project, Mirumir Studio main partner of Cinetrain.

Realised for a relatively low budget (very low budget according to the Russians), the workshop counts its mere existence thanks to many supports. Firstly from the Council of Europe and the European Cultural Foundation, two long standing partners of NISI MASA. Then to Canon, who has been lending video camcorders.

In Russia supporters are many and include: the Meridian Asian-Pacific Film Festival of Vladivostok, the Union of Russian Film-Makers, the municipalities of Yekaterinburg, Sludianka, Ulan-Ude, Blagoveshensk, the Goethe Institute and the Dutch Embassy. Hopefully no one has been forgotten.

RETIRED FILMMAKERS

The place we stay for sleeping in Moscow is quite special: a building owned by the ex-Ministry of Cinema dedicated to its veterans and cinema technicians. In other words, a pension for retired film-makers. The communist system has not completely disappeared yet, despite the gigantic advertisements that cover the Moscovite buildings, which make the capital look very virtual, something like a constant open-air cinema. According to Natasha the advertisements not only cover the buildings in renovation, but the real-estate agents decide to put the buildings they own in renovation in order to attract advertisement...

The film-makers' pension gives us the rare privilege to get acquainted with a central and famous character of the eternal Russia: the 'baboushka' (litterally 'old lady'). The 'baboushka' is a good indicator to measure the degree of optimism anyone puts in human kind. Depending on the percentage of nice/bad 'baboushkas' one considers exist in Russia, it's quite easy to deduct his/her vision of the world. In our case, we seem to be rather unlucky, considering the way our 'baboushka' either ignores us or shout at us during the breakfast when we simply ask for more milk. Both Monica (from Portugal) and Monika (from Poland) have been the victims of the very bad baboushka.

The Cinetrain crew

Dear Cinetrain addicts,

You can find below the names of the whole Cinetrain crew, all the people who will be mentioned in this blog.

22 people gathered in the same train coming from 14 different countries!

The filming crews are divided into 6 groups of 3 people each (director, cameraman, editor/sound engineer). Each group is going to make a short documentary dealing with the theme of the workshop, and the topics they decided to tackle can be labelled as following: "food", "children", "travel", "dreams", "music"... and "Lenin"!!

Here they are, the future (& the present!) of Euro-Russian documentary filmmaking:

The FOOD group
Andrei Tanase, Romania
Florian Crebbs, Germany
George Groshkov, Bulgaria

The CHILDREN group
Denes Nagy, Hungary
Leo Bruges, United Kingdom
Anna Dimitrieva, Bulgaria

The TRAVEL group
Monica Baptista, Portugal
Filip Syczynski, Poland
Evgeniy Goriainov, Russia

The DREAMS group
Iris Olsson, Finland
Natasha Pavlovskaia, Russia
Dimitris Tolios, Greece

The MUSIC group
Jochem de Vries, Netherlands
Marton Vizkelety, Hungary
Guillaume Protsenko, France

The LENIN group
Nikita Sutyrin, Russia
Monika Kotecka, Poland
Julien Pierrefeu, France

The ORGANISATION group
Matthieu Darras, France
Aleksandra Marchenko, Ukraine
Hannah Mironenko, Belarus
Tanya Petrik, Russia

You said Cinetrain?

Organising an itinerant film event; NISI MASA has been nurturing this crazy idea ever since the origins of the network. It took the arrival of the Russian association Moviement, for the dream to become reality.

For our enthusiastic Moscow-based colleagues creating Cinetrain was to bring up-to-date a unique working method, invented by Russian documentary filmmakers in the 1930s. Film crews, under the guidance of Aleksandr Medvedkin, used to travel through the Soviet Union in specially equipped wagons.

Although they were filming the industrial achievements of the regime, their underlying goal was to give the power of speech to people who didn’t normally have the opportunity to get their voices heard.

In 2008, the international workshop aims at ensuring the legacy of this spirit, but by focusing its interest on the notion of borders. “Did we just cross the European border?” 18 young filmmakers will constantly ask themselves along the 9 302 km of the mythic Trans-Siberian railroad track.

Welcome!