Wild, Wild Beach
Zar nezhnykh. Dikyi, dikyi plyazh
RUSSIA, GERMANY / 2006 / Russian / Color / Video / 125 min
Directors, Script: Alexander Rastorguev, Vitaly Mansky, Susanna Baranzhieva
Photography: Edward Kechedzhiyan, Pavel Kostomarov
Editing: Dasha Danilova
Sound: Georgi Masyukov, Georgi Yermolenko, Dmitri Zimin
Music: Peter Nazaretov, Alexander Pantyukhin
Commissioning Editor: Jutta Krug (WDR)
Producers: Vitaly Mansky, Natalya Manskaya
Co-Producer: Heino Deckert
Production Companies: Vertov & Co, ma.ja.de. filmproduktion, WDR (in association with YLE TV2 Documentaries)
World Sales: Deckert Distribution
The Russian seaside, overflowing with people on summer holiday. People unleashed under the bright sun are dizzy with desire for power, money, and pleasure. A photographer who transports a camel from far away to lure tourists, a drunk middle-aged woman, an elderly rapper, a skinny and stout twosome who are constantly trying to pick up women, and a visit by President Putin. The confusion of contemporary Russia is captured in this lively caricature.
[Director’s Statement] Ten years ago I visited the south of Russia and decided to walk along the Black Sea. After the sun had disappeared below the horizon and it got really dark I suddenly found myself in a small and extraordinary town. There were apartments, bars and shops, casinos, and amusement parks. The only strange fact about the town was that everything was built out of cardboard boxes and plywood. I spent only one day in this place, but often returned there in my dreams. I felt as though I had seen a scale-model of a town, like one in a museum but occupied with real people. Another interesting fact about this place was that all its inhabitants were naked, in both the literal and figurative senses of the word. A few years later I made a well-received documentary film about it, Broadway. Black Sea (2002). But despite the film’s success I had a feeling that many things still remained behind the scenes. Later I convinced my colleagues Alexander Rastorguev and Susanna Baranzhieva to join me for another film about this odd place. I showed them my Broadway and introduced them to the heroes of my film.
We spent the whole season on the coast of the Black Sea, from July until October, and eventually made a six-hour version of Wild, Wild Beach, a real cinematographic novel in the tradition of Dostoevsky and Gogol. We spent a year fighting for this version of the film, with its long length and explicit scenes, before finally surrendering and editing it to this 125-minute version. We hope that your imagination will help you to reconstruct in your mind that big film and that endless, wild beach, which tends to remind us of our own crazy lives in the modern world.
—Vitaly Mansky
Alexander Rastorguev
Born in 1971 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where he studied philology at the State University. He later studied filmmaking at the Academy of Theatrical Art in St Petersburg. His works include Good Bye, Boys (1997) and Maundy Thursday (2002). 
Vitaly Mansky
Born in 1963 in Lvov, Ukraine, he graduated from VGIK and became one of the most acclaimed contemporary Russian documentary filmmakers. He founded an archive of amateur home movies, covering the period 1945 to 1991, and runs an electronic journal on documentary film (www.vertov.ru). His film Private Chronicles. Monologue (1999) was screened at YIDFF 2001. 
Susanna Baranzhieva
Baranzhieva graduated with a journalism degree from Rostov State University in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. She subsequently served as an editor for the magazine Literary Armenia. Since 1997, she has been working for the state radio station Don-TR in Rostov-on-Don. She has written scripts for more than 100 TV broadcasts. This film marks her debut as a director. |