In St. Petersburg, work is underway on the feature-documentary film about besieged Leningrad. The plot of the picture develops in two time intervals - during the blockade and in our days. The Mariinsky Theater becomes the link between them.

According to the plot of the part whose action unfolds today, the premiere of the ballet Leningrad Suite is being prepared in the theater. At some point, the production remains without a soloist - Marina, the dancer, is removed from the party "because of a lack of understanding of the role." The girl does not agree with this decision and begins to defend his candidacy. Gradually, she learns more and more details about the native theater during the siege of the city by German troops. Soon Marina meets with people who dedicate her to the true story of the creation of the "Leningrad Suite".

The heroes tell the girl about the prototype of the main character of the ballet - the young ballerina Sasha, who remained in the besieged city and performed as part of concert brigades. After the composer’s father was seriously injured, she had to leave the stage and devote herself to caring for him. Then they together created “beautiful music dedicated to the people of Leningrad”.

“During the blockade, Sasha still fulfills his dream of a scene, meets first love and makes the most important choice in life. Sasha’s story not only helps Marina to gain the cherished role, but also changes her whole life, ”the official synopsis says.

The creators are looking for actors among the graduates of theater schools in St. Petersburg - each of them passes preliminary castings and rehearsals. According to Nikolayenko, “media faces” familiar to the audience will not be suitable for their stories, since “certain types are already assigned to them, and they can break the atmosphere of authenticity”.

It is planned to complete the tape before the end of 2019, in order to release it next autumn or winter. To date, the production of the "Leningrad Suite" has been spent on a tiny amount by cinema standards - a little more than 150 thousand rubles (money for a picture is collected through crowdfunding). According to the director Svetlana Nikolayenko, the final budget will be about 15 million rubles. At the same time, she is sure: “You don't need a lot of money to touch the hearts of the audience, if you have an original idea, a good story and a group of talented people.”

Production of the film "Leningrad Suite" began in 2017 - then the beginning director, a graduate of the St. Petersburg State Institute of Cinema and Television Svetlana Nikolaenko had to remove a short documentary tape about blockade Leningrad. However, the narrow limits of the film-interview did not suit her from the very beginning, so even in the early stages the director realized that the picture would be not just documentary - but artistic and documentary. During the search for a suitable story that could be integrated into this kind of film, Nikolaenko met the beginning script writer Yegor Shilov, who had a suitable idea.

A fragile but strong girl dancing in a cold, deserted apartment in a ruined city, was first introduced by Shilov when he came across a brochure called the Mariinsky Theater during the years of the blockade. And after a while he came up with a story about Sasha, a young ballet dancer who lived in besieged Leningrad. After this, the screenwriter plunged into the study of historical documents, which, according to him, turned out to be a daunting task.

“Reading the diaries of the inhabitants of Leningrad, reading the memoirs of the artists of the Kirov Theater (from 1935 to 1992, the Mariinsky Theater was called the Leningrad Order of Lenin and the Order of the October Revolution of the Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after S. Kirov. - RT ), watching newsreel footage - each time more and more amazed at the courage of people and the horrors that were going on, ”he said.

Nikolayenko emphasizes that she is not afraid of such a difficult and painful topic for many as the blockade.

“In our history there is no attempt to embellish, diminish, distort the facts. We try to take a responsible approach to the material: we studied diaries, read books, and so on. In our film there are many real facts from the life of the Kirov Theater: evacuation in late August 1941, the bombing of the theater in early September, performances on the anniversary of the revolution in the autumn: our characters are inscribed in the outline of these real events, the director assures. “Yes, the heroes themselves are fictitious, but they act in the way that people could behave in their position with their set of qualities and character.”

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  • © The film "Leningrad Suite"

In parallel with the writing of the script, training in screenwriting was also going on: as RT Nikolaenko told, she took specialized courses and together with Shilov studied the educational literature in order to “make good drama, which has empathy for the heroes, moral choice, the final showing the essence of things and events not indifferent. "

During the two years of work on the picture, the script has grown and has undergone a large number of changes. According to the director, the first versions of Sasha’s line looked different - now “literally several scenes” are left from the original version. So the documentary short meter first became artistic and documentary, and then - complete.

“At some point, we realized that the topic of blockade ballet is so interesting that there is something to show. The characters of the heroes also became more voluminous during the work, and soon it was impossible to simply remove any scene. Each scene in a chain pulls the other as a single mechanism, ”admits Nikolayenko.

She considers it extremely important to fix and preserve the stories and memoirs of the “outgoing” generation of besieged Leningrad: “Unfortunately, every year there are less and less eyewitnesses (tech -RT ) events.”

The creators emphasize that in the film the interview will act not only as a documentary invoice, but also as a “link between generations”.

“It is through them that the heroes of the modern line (yes, we also have the connection of times) try to understand and realize this time,” the director says.