Radda Novikova filming
High profile Russian film and TV director Radda Novikova gives us an in depth interview about her new projects
Radda, the only way to catch you is on a film set. Now you have just finished shooting a social issue project about school bullying. What is it?
The project is called “Sharp Currents”, company “Kinoagentstvo”, producer Maxim Katkov. It received support of the state. During isolation in Moscow my co-author Ilya Korobko and I wrote 20 scripts 1-8 minutes each about the problems of adolescents. Bullying, suicide, school shooting, age-related issues, prison regulations among teenagers, pregnancy at 13. This is a very important project for me, a huge number of children, both actors and non-actors were shot. Now I’m editing the film. The producers are going to distribute them on YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, everywhere on Internet platforms where children and adolescents will see them. It is also planned to be submitted to festivals.
Radda Novikova with crew of Moskovskaya Gorka
This is a very important matter. In parallel with Sharp Currents, you finished shooting the short film Moskovskaya Gorka. What is this story about? Did you really film Fyodor Bondarchuk? What is his role?
This is a romantic, lyrical love story based on the story of Alexander Tsypkin. Yes, Fyodor Sergeevich played one of the main roles, but I cannot reveal exactly which one, since it plays an important part of the plot development. Andrey Smolyakov, Anatoly Bely, Victoria Tolstoganova also played in the film. The shooting took place from February to June, the snow of the first shooting day and minus 20, when everyone became numb from the cold, then it was necessary to imitate with a snow machine and in the end already in the pavilion.
Moskovskaya Gorka
Your web series for the OKKO platform recently went on the air, where you worked in a vertical format. What it is?
For OKKO and Sberbank, the short film “Copywriters” was filmed based on the script by Alexander Tsypkin, rather interesting story, which actually was shot in a vertical format, and was very difficult for the cinematographer who is used to shooting horizontally. But that was the requirement of the platform. The film stars Igor Petrenko, Yulia Topolnitskaya, Artem Nemov. This is an intimate story that develops from a regular chat on a dating site.
The second web series is “Notes of a Hotelier” about a very popular hotel “Helvetia” that really exists in St. Petersburg, the series was filmed and based on the book of the owner of the hotel, Yunis Teymurkhanli, this is a comedy in the format of 10 minute episodes (10 episodes), it aired with high ratings and a second season is planned.
What are your plans for the future?
I finished the script for the full-length drama “Spindle” about women victims of the patriarchal world. In Russia, this is a very sensitive topic, given that the country is “male” and a law on domestic violence has not even been adopted.
By end of the summer we must also start filming a dramedy for the Comedy Club program on TNT, commissioned by Semyon Slepakov.
I also wrote a satirical web series about alcoholics, now we are planning to shoot a pilot episode in August. It will be hot.
I can only wish you great luck!
Additional information about Radda Novikova’s projects: Angelica Pashkova is producer of “Moskovskaya Gorka”. Various stars of Russian show business made appearances in “Notes of the Hotelier”, as well as Irina Temicheva, Ilya Korobko, Alexander Nevzorov, Marina Fedunkiv.
