The famous Russian director and screenwriter, member of the jury of the Eurasia.DOC festival, Natalia Gugueva, spoke in an interview about working on her first feature film, “Fog,” and also about how her many years of experience in documentary filmmaking helped her when shooting the film.
On April 11, the film “Fog” directed by Natalia Gugueva was released in Russia. The success with which this film conquers numerous festivals (24 awards have already been awarded at international and all-Russian competitions) evokes not only great respect from film critics, but also surprise. Natalia Gugueva, with her more than 20 years of experience in documentary cinema, has become steadily associated with this direction of screen art. However, unexpectedly for many, Natalia Gugueva loudly burst into the world of feature films with her first psychological thriller “Fog”. On the eve of the film’s release in Russia, we contacted the director and asked several questions that interested us.
– Natalya Mikhailovna, it was not easy to call you for an interview: you are flying somewhere almost all the time, filming something. Tell us what you are working on now?
– I now have 4 documentaries in varying stages of production, on different topics, in different genres. Large-scale, chamber. There is a project with complex animation, and now one of my main tasks is the release of the feature-length feature film “Fog” for nationwide distribution. Before the release, we arrange special screenings in Russian cities, where I present this film personally.
– What is this story about?
– This is a story of love and how difficult it is to preserve it in our world distorted by sin.How love can turn into hatred, how jealousy, possessiveness, resentment, and unforgiveness are mixed into it. We filmed the film on the Kola Peninsula at the oldest operating weather station in the world, which is over 130 years old. It was important to achieve intimacy – they tried to create the feeling of an island where, far from civilization, our heroes resolve their most important existential questions.
– Many film critics say that the main character is you, your alter ego. Do you agree with this?
– Yes, I agree somewhere. The journalist is a young girl of 20 years old. It seems to me that at that age I had approximately the same character and could, in order to achieve something, perform approximately the same unusual and slightly adventurous actions. We have a detective component in the film: some mysteries are posed and solved, new ones appear. The task was to keep the viewer in suspense.
– How did you move from documentaries to feature films?
– This is not accidental. When I entered VGIK in the 90s, I was immediately focused on making feature films; I graduated from a scriptwriting workshop. And, quite unexpectedly for myself, while collecting material for a feature film about carrier-based aviation pilots, I went to the places where they worked and lived. There I saw that real characters, heroes, people are so interesting in themselves that the idea arose to create a documentary film. And then I got involved, liked it, and I’ve been making documentaries for more than 20 years. Recently I wanted to make a fiction film, because there are some themes, conflicts and situations in real life that, if filmed in a documentary, could harm the characters in the film. Cause psychological trauma, for example. In this case, I believe that life is more important than cinema, and it is quite possible, if you want to express yourself on this topic, to film a story with the help of actors. It can be just as exciting and never let go of the viewer.
In my work I tried to achieve a documentary effect. We filmed not in pavilions, but in real locations on the Kola Peninsula. The intuition of a documentarian helped me. First of all, you need to listen to nature and change your plans, dramatically adapting to it. For example, on the first day the weather gave us a storm, a storm at sea, and I asked the entire film crew to change the schedule. Everyone cooperated and we shot the difficult climactic shots at the very beginning. And they were right, because nature no longer gave us a storm. But she gave us a rainbow. When the copter operator (quadcopter operator – editor’s note) arrived for a few hours to shoot the shots we needed, including the final shots of the film, at that very moment, completely on point, a rainbow came out. Nature helped us. And when working with the actors, I used moments they experienced in life that resonated with the plot of the film. Preparing for filming, I talked to each of them one-on-one, looked for some emotional points in their souls, and, of course, I used this very carefully.
– Judging by your methods and the fact that the film was created in the genre of a psychological thriller, is this a film therapy film (film therapy is a branch of art therapy – editor’s note)?
– Yes, yesterday I literally reposted the review of a spectator from Irkutsk who watched the film at the “Man and Nature” festival. She is a professional psychologist and presented the picture through this prism. Also, one viewer from Altai, who watched “The Fog” at the festival, wrote to me that she cried throughout the film, but it finally resolved a difficult situation for her with her mother. And she was able, after living our story, to accept her mother for who she is. As Sergei Ursulyak, my favorite director, says, and he, by the way, was the artistic director of this project, helping with the selection of actors and in the preparatory period: “We must make films that improve human nature. If this doesn’t happen, then why do it?” Judging by the feedback from the viewer, our cinema changes people, and that means it’s not in vain.
– You presented the film abroad. Considering the difficult situation, were there any problems with promoting the film “Fog” internationally?
– Yes, I am faced with this. Several European festivals turned us down. When we talked with the selectors, they accepted the film with admiration and positive epithets, even tried to do something to make it included in the program, but then apologized, saying that due to the political situation the screening was impossible. However, there were those who believed that art and our cinematic connections were more important, and therefore accepted the film. In Italy it was shown at two festivals. At the first one I received a special prize, and there the reaction of the audience was very emotional, young guys came up and said that they were deeply touched by this story. At the second festival I received a prize for best director, which is also nice.In Spain we were presented in 8 categories and received awards in 5. There, Ukrainian activists tried to disrupt the screening – they first protested because the film was taken for competition. It is worth noting that the selectors behaved very calmly. The organizers wrote to me that some spectators perceived these activists as a line for tickets. Then there were protests against the fact that a film from Russia received awards…
I would like to express my gratitude to many people in the arts, selectors of paintings from other countries who have maintained impartiality. When they wrote to me that they were under pressure, but they intended to go to the end, it caused a great uplift.
Then the film was shown at festivals in India, Turkey, and was taken to Dubai and China. For everyone, this is an emotional story of complex love set against the backdrop of the exotic northern nature of Russia. Such a universal ancient plot, understandable all over the world – the love of a man and a woman, a child and a parent.
On April 11, screenings of the film will begin in Russian cities. You can track the sessions on my social networks.
– Very soon the festival “Eurasia.DOC” will be launched, the jury of which you have been a member of for many years. What films would you, as a jury member, like to see at the festival?
– I always closely follow new films about the Great Patriotic War, which tell something unknown – they contain chronicles, interviews with people. This is important because we continue to have disputes with some of our former allies over the war. There are so many lies and distortions of facts that it is precisely films and documentary evidence that cannot be faked that can counteract this.
I would also like not reportage, but deep films with the destinies of people about today’s war in Ukraine. There are a lot of reports about the Northern Military District, but there are no human stories with the deep destinies of people and families. But there is a lot of tragedy, drama, love and hatred – the real thing that worries. War reveals any person like a litmus test, whether you are in the rear or on the front line. Sometimes people ask me why I can’t do this myself. Moreover, I already have films (“The Fast and the Furious,” “The Fast and the Furious. Return”) about the breakdown of families and people along ethnic lines. But my story is complicated – my mother is Ukrainian, my father is Russian, I grew up in Ukraine, in Dnepropetrovsk, I have lived in Moscow since I was 19, but there are many relatives left in my homeland. And I can’t take something off myself, because I need to calm down first. For a director to start working on a topic deeply and seriously, he needs distance from the material, and I don’t have this distance yet.
– What, in your opinion, is the peculiarity of the festival “Eurasia.DOC”?
– “Eurasia.DOC” is a festival that unites our post-Soviet space and those people who went abroad but are related to it. This is very important, because in our world now there are so many dividing things, in all spheres of life: political, social, family, corporate. The task of unification is one of the main ones. And “Eurasia.DOC” is just such a festival that creates a common platform in the fields of culture, art, history for filmmakers from the countries of the post-Soviet space. After all, we have a lot in common, not only in the past, but also in mentality, upbringing, and traditions.
– Thank you for the conversation. We wish you great success for your film! And see you at the VIII Documentary Film Festival of the CIS countries “Eurasia.DOC”!
Text: Dina Grishina
The photo for publication is from the personal archive of Natalia Gugueva.
