Aleksey POPOGREBSKY
Алексей ПОПОГРЕБСКИЙ
Alekseï POPOGREBSKI
Russia, 2006, 110mn 
Colour, fiction
Simple Things
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Простые вещи

 

 Les Choses simples

 Prostye veshchi

 
Directed by : Aleksey POPOGREBSKY (Алексей ПОПОГРЕБСКИЙ)
Writing credits : Aleksey POPOGREBSKY (Алексей ПОПОГРЕБСКИЙ)
 
Cast
Leonid BRONEVOY (Леонид БРОНЕВОЙ) ...Jouravlev
Svetlana KAMYNINA (Светлана КАМЫНИНА)
Galina KAZAKOVA (Галина КАЗАКОВА)
Sergey PUSKEPALIS (Сергей ПУСКЕПАЛИС) ...Sergueï Maslov
Mikhail YEVLANOV (Михаил ЕВЛАНОВ)
 
Cinematography : Pavel KOSTOMAROV (Павел КОСТОМАРОВ)
Music : Dmitry KATKHANOV (Дмитрий КАТХАНОВ)
Produced by : Roman BORISEVICH (Роман БОРИСЕВИЧ)
Production : Koktebel Film Company
Film revenue in Russia : 0.083 million dollars
Release date in Russia : 01/03/2007
 
format : 35 mm

Awards :
Best Screenplay Golden Eagle awards, Moscow (Russia), 2008
Best film Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007
Best directing Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007
Best actor Sergey PUSKEPALIS , Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007
FIPRESCI Prize Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), 2007
Best actor Sergey PUSKEPALIS , Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), 2007
Special Jury prize Leonid BRONEVOY , Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), 2007
Best Screenplay "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2007
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Leonid BRONEVOY , "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2007
Best actor Sergey PUSKEPALIS , Award "White Elephant", Moscow (Russia), 2007
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Leonid BRONEVOY , Award "White Elephant", Moscow (Russia), 2007

Note :
“Grand Prix” at “Centaurus” Film Festival in Sochi

Plot synopsis
Anesthetist Sergei Maslov is going through an unfortunate period in his life: he has problems at work, his driving license was taken away and he has to take a bus, his daughter ran away from home, and his wife decided to have a baby. At this moment, he meets a new patient, a former popular actor who is now almost forgotten. Sergei has a possibility to change everything, but will he use it? http://www.balticpearl.lv/en/fest/russian.html
 

Commentaries and bibliography
Signs of the Everyday in Post-Soviet Cinema, Liliia NEMCHENKO, kinokultura.com, 2011
Aleksei Popogrebskii : Simple Things (Prostye veshchi, 2007), Julian GRAFFY, kinokultura.com, 2008
 
At the center-and in every scene-of Simple Things is Sergei Maslov, an anesthetist suffering from a sense of failure only aggravated by his cramped St. Petersburg apartment and financial troubles. Marvelously played by theater director Sergei Puskepalis in his first film role, Maslov is emotionally detached but surrounded by people with whom he must interact on a daily basis. We meet him just as his attempts at an affair with a receptionist at his clinic crumble-at the same time that his teenage daughter runs away with her boyfriend and his wife announces that she's unexpectedly pregnant. However, a side gig for extra cash-giving an acerbic old actor injections for his pain-opens the way to a fragile but potentially life-changing friendship. Director Aleksei Popogrebsky steers clear of both melodrama and high drama, choosing instead a humor-laced approach to storytelling that is refreshingly straightforward-playfully inventive dialog, an abundance of absorbing details, probing close-ups, and a vérité-like moving camera. The result is surprisingly rich: Maslov could easily be an idealized Everyman struggling to get by, but in Popogrebsky's hands he becomes pleasingly specific and real, his concreteness as a human being imbuing the film with more meaning than any imposed message or moral. Winner of most of the major prizes at the 18th Kinotavr Film Festival (Russia's foremost film event) and various prizes at other festivals, Simple Things is the second film from a director who studied to be a psychologist before turning to cinema. Such an education is certainly no guarantee of success in filmmaking, but in Popogrebsky's subtle yet remarkably assured direction, we can sense a distinct delight-paired with a remarkable acuity-in observing and pondering how people interact.
-- Kellen Quinn
Source : www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Simple_Things.html

Review by Kinokultura

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Strasbourg two weeks of Russian cinema, Strasbourg (France), 2012
- Moscow, St-Petersburg : two faces of Russia, Paris (France), 2010
- Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro (Italy), 2010
- Rabat International Film Festival, Rabat (Morocco), 2009
- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2009
- Sofia International Film Festival, Sofia (Bulgaria), 2008
- Honfleur Russian Film Festival, Honfleur (France), 2008
- Days of Russian cinema in Limoges, Limoges (France), 2008
- Angers Festival Premiers Plans, Angers (France), 2008
- Festival of Central and Eastern Film , Wiesbaden (Germany), 2008
- Haifa International Film Festival, Haifa (Israel), 2008
- Golden Eagle awards, Moscow (Russia), 2008
- International Film Festival of the Commonwealth Countries "Moscow Premiere", Moscow (Russia), 2008
- Russian Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2008
- Tribeca Film Festival, New York (USA), 2008
- Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), 2007
- Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Tessaloniki (Greece), 2007
- Festival Russian cinema in Israel, Tel Aviv (Israel), 2007
- Warsaw Film Festival, Warsaw (Poland), 2007
- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2007
- Award "White Elephant", Moscow (Russia), 2007
- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007
- Film Festival of CIS countries, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia "Kinoshock", Anapa (Russia), 2007
- International Film Festival of the Commonwealth Countries "Moscow Premiere", Moscow (Russia), 2007
- "Vyborg" Russian Film Festival (formerly ''A Window to Europe''), Vyborg (Russia), 2007
- International Zurich Film Festival, Zurich (Switzerland), 2007
- Kyiv International Film Festival 'Molodist', Kiev (Ukraine), 2007

Photos and videos
 



Trailer sur teatr-russe.com