CULTURE BOX
- WHERE MUSIC MEETS FILM AND TV!!!

Renowned British director, scriptwriter and producer Roland Joffe (“Vatel”,” The Scarlet Letter”,”The Mission”) came to Moscow to work on his new feature film “Finding t.A.T.u.” adapted from A. Mitrofanov’s novel “t.A.T.u. COME BACK”. The shooting is set to begin in May, and the plot revolves around the adventures of two young girls in present-day Moscow, a unique city where anything can happen.

It’s the second time Roland works with RAMCO production company in Moscow: In 2005 he directed “Captivity” with Hollywood stars Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies in the lead roles. Even though “Captivity” opens June, 22 in the US, the movie’s already been hitting the headlines due to the controversial marketing practiced by the movie’s distributor After Dark.

- Roland, you worked on such legendary films as “Vatel”, “The Scarlet Letter”, “The Mission”, “The Killing Fields”, and in May you start shooting “Finding t.A.T.u”. What is it that makes the project attractive to you? Why did you decide to address the subject of modern youth culture?

- I think the fascinating thing about youth everywhere, and particularly in Russia, is that it is nature’s way of giving humanity another chance. The wonderful thing about youth is that it’s a regeneration. It’s true all over the world, and adults get upset about it because it makes them irrelevant. I guess we will all be irrelevant at some stage. Youth in Russia is particularly important, and if one looks at the country closely, it’s quite clear there are three generations who all live in slightly different worlds, maybe with varying degrees of sanity. There’s the older generation, who basically were part of what’s now a discredited system, the system that ran out of steam. And it’s a very difficult thing for them to make the “adjustments”, particularly if they think the system served them well... You have a middle generation, who came into position too prominent when there was an explosion of liberalization. Half of them didn’t understand its meaning too well, and didn’t very well understood capitalism. Capitalism is a very complex mechanism. It’s rather like Darwinism, so it’s easy to mistake what it is. You could easily decide Darwinism is about survival of the fittest, or even the survival of the strongest. Actually that’s not what it means. Darwinism is about the survival of the most co-operative, cause the species that win best are the ones that co-operate best, not species who play zero sum games.
The second generation have been playing zero sum games with capitalism, and that can’t actually go on, because it itself creates apractic society. So, they live in another kind of world. But the younger generation have an odd advantage now, because they see both worlds and realize that neither world is the answer. There’s another answer, and it’s in their hands, not in ours anymore. That’s why it’s so exciting. I think that for all young people the quest is to find out who they are. And who you are means coming to terms with your own integrity.
Since there’s many of the people who grew up under the old rules, they learnt to tell lies, basically, because inside themselves they were critical of the system, but couldn’t be critical openly. So they really learned not to tell the truth. The second generation, the one that arrived in the age of liberalization, decided that being brutal was the way, that you always had to take what you wanted. It’s is a certain lack of integrity there, because it’s not what makes people work. I think the younger generation can tell us of the fact that actually integrity may be discovered through honesty, a kind of honesty to yourself and honesty about who you are and what you need.And that’s very tied up with art, and with music, and with riding motorcycles, and any way the human beings choose to express themselves.
If they’re expressing themselves with honesty and integrity and the beauty that comes out of that, it’s automatically interesting. So I really enjoy telling a story that contains all those things in it. It’s about young people trying to find their fit in the world, and the fact that young people often may not know where their talents lie. They may think that their talents lie in direction A, while in fact they lie in direction B. So, I liked the power of the story, I liked the darkness and I even liked the humor of it. I’d like to do a movie that’s about those very human subjects. Particularly in Moscow. The last movie I made here, but it was set in America, so I thought it’d be a waste of time to be in Moscow all the way, because I couldn’t use anything I learned here. So it was attractive to me, when I had the space to do this, to come back and actually express something I felt about my time in Moscow and what I’ve learnt about it now. That’s fun.

- Is there any difference between the younger generation in Russia and in America?

Well, there is and there isn’t. Because all young people in the States are flocks. What all young people have in common is their need to belong to something, because they don’t quite know who they are yet. And as they belong to something they begin to learn what that something is.
I think that in a way some Russian youth has more innocent dreams, the whole Russian youth probably, though it’s difficult to generalize. And I think some American youth are probably less sure-footed, because they live in a slightly more protected environment. But on the other end they’re close together on the outer levels, so I think Russian and American youth have far more in common than Russian youth have with Russian adults or American youth with American adults. That’s just the way life works.

- What do you personally think of t.A.T.u.?

Well, I think t.A.T.u. is very interesting because the band is two young girls. I don’t have talent, which they undoubtedly do, in learning the commercial system, and I thought as I watched them being creative, also in learning the fact that you have to work at being a pop-star. If you can achieve a communication with the public, you have to know what that communication is based on, what does the public like in you. You can’t manipulate the public for very long, it gets aware very quickly. I think the nice thing about t.A.T.u. is that there’s a genuine struggle going on in them to honestly express what they feel as human beings. And that too is exciting.

- Do you like t.A.T.u.’s music?
Yes, my tastes in music are pretty eclectic actually, I mean I like all sorts of music. And I think some of t.A.T.u.’s songs are terrific

t.A.T.u. will also play themselves. The shooting of the movie based on Alexey Mitrofanov's book "t.A.T.u. Сome Back" begins in mid-May. The story is based on real events happened to two young t.A.T.u. fans, on their love and crime.

 

Alexey Mitrofanov: There were two t.A.T.u. fans, they wanted to run away to Moscow. They came to take a passport, a fight started. They accidentally killed the mother of one of them, and went to jail. They just asked to stay together during the time of imprisonment

Interviewer: So they are in jail now?

Alexey Mitrofanov: Yes, they are in jail.

Lena: It's realistic.

Yulia: It's really close to reality.

Lena: We’re fed up with fairy tales, with looking at life through pink glasses.

Yulia: Yes, exactly, all we see is “love and roses” - not just in movies, but also as a life principle. Like “love and roses” are true.

Lena: My sister likes to watch movies a lot, and every time she just screams, just sits and yells, "It can't be true! This is not life! It doesn't happen like that in real life!"

Alexey Mitrofanov: They are tougher, more specific.

They are less interested in global problems, they are all in their own problems - and this is their strength.

Yulia: And now, the same happens in the life of young people. If mom doesn’t let her daughter go out with some boy, she will take drugs or jump out of the window. If she doesn’t kill someone else – then she does it to herself. It's a fact, that's how it goes in life now. This is how young people approach life.

Lena: The eternal problem of parents and kids.

Yulia: Of course, of course! Ok, they killed the mother, that's where their emotions led. Others would jump out of the window, drugs and everything. Kill themselves in cars on purpose. They just kill themselves because mother didn't allow them to meet with a boy. I can’t go out? Bye-bye..

Lena: But it doesn't mean it's good.

Yulia: But this is reality. There's noting unusual in that. It's ok. I think it'll be scandalous movie, our kind of movie. We're waiting for it.

 

Russian movie makers were considered not credible enough to produce of this scandalous, t.A.T.u-style movie. What if they won't make it?

 

Alexey Mitrofanov: Since the idea was to make a movie for international release, including the USA as special territory, an American team was engaged, people who know the rules of the world market, director, operator, American cast. The language is English. But also there will be many Russian actors.

Yulia: The director Roland Joffe already visited Moscow. Now he's here, he was here for 5 times already, 2-3 weeks each visit. He asked to take him to clubs, central streets, parties. He wanted to see how Moscow lives.

Lena: So he can show it as realistic as possible.

Yulia: The movie will be shot in Moscow and America. Lena and I will also hang out in clubs. Roland saw how youth lives, how they party. He went to karaoke-bars with us, to restaurants. He just watched Russia and Moscow lives.

 

Interviewer:What did he especially like, or dislike?

 

Yulia: I think as usual – the liberty of people in our country, the liberty of partying. The debauchery of the clubs here, young boys and girls in clubs. I mean, there's no such thing in America. It's not allowed to go drink until you are 21, and here every young girl is… you know… “all tuned”, so I think it made him think a lot.

 

The plot of the movie will be linked to the t.A.T.u. legend - the story about two girls who fight for the right to live and create on their own terms.

Yulia: We play ourselves - t.A.T.u band. Shows, performances, shootings, hanging out with our fans, our lives, rehearsals.

Lena: It's a pretty biographic plot.

Alexey Mitrofanov: t.A.T.u. is movie’s background.

Yulia: I'm a kind of person that doesn’t like doing anything on purpose. I mean, I should be same person in life and on stage. I'll always have the opportunity to act when I'll be over forty or fifty. Maybe then I'll be able to play a mature woman who sits at home and all this. Now I want to show myself in movies. In movies, I want to be the same person I'm in life so that people won't think it's something invented. We should play ourselves. And that's what I like about Leosha Mitrofanov's idea – that we play ourselves. There’s nothing “made up”

 

The main characters of Alexei Mitrofanov's book and future movie are two girls who are infatuated not only with t.A.T.u. band but also with each other. Despite that, movie producers believe that there will be no age limit for movie-goers.

 

Alexey Mitrofanov: This is the main story. The movie is about this, as well as the book.

Yulia: We're not propagating any kind of love and we especially not showing any kind of dirty love. Nothing vulgar, no lesbian love, lesbianism, nothing like that. You know, it was in the age of fourteen, when it's two girls or boys - doesn't matter… when you try yourself, try to find you way in life… It’s teen age, when you say, "Parents, go to hell, we'll do everything ourselves, we don't need school, we want to party, to hang out, to smoke etc - everybody starts from that. I don't think there's anything dirty about it. Yes, we tried some things, there were some things, but not vulgar and not dirty. But everyone perceives it in their own way. Yes, the events there are happening around us, because we had this… not image, but story. So these two girls from different cities found each other in the internet, fell in love - and the story goes on.

Alexey Mitrofanov: First, the movie is about liberty. And second - about relationship. On the background of t.A.T.u.

Yulia: We grow up, and our fans - too. It's impossible to kiss and all when you are 22. That was school age, yes, there were times with ambitions and all this. I had a girl (not one) in my life, it's not a secret. I've tried that and it was interesting for me. But at some point in life you understand… I already have a child, I have a family and a beloved person.

Lena: The choice is already made.

Yulia: Yes, it was teen age, a problematic age, but we can't perform in skirts all our lives, kiss each other and tell, "Lena, I love you!". Of course we love each other, absolutely, as friends as sisters. Our fans also grow up. I don't think that girls who's grown up already will be interested in watching us in skirts like we are little girls.

Alexey Mitrofanov: What's the meaning of t.A.T.u.? What made them a really successful band in the whole world? They told a story that is international. That's what it's all about. No one here in Russia can't understand this. It's an international story, a story of two girls, especially the second album - take their song "All about us" - about two girls trying to survive in this world. In different ways, but it doesn't matter – the main thing is to survive. This story is universal. Can't you find such girls in Warsaw? In Paris? Don't such girls live in London, renting apartment together?… There's no girls like that in Moscow? In Kiev? Of course, there are. And there are millions of them. This is a Pepsi and and t.A.T.u. generation.

 

Will the ambitious plans of Alexei Mitrofanov and t.A.T.u. will come to life? We’ll wait and see. Expectation won't take long: The movie will be out by the end of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never knew that some t.A.T.u fans killed their parents trying to get to moscow so that they could meet them :o

 

 

credits to tatu.ru/eng

i love Yulia :D