"Goldfinch" (The Goldfinch)


One of the most memorable literary events of 2014 was the novel "Goldfinch" by American writer Donna Tartt. For a book that incorporates elements of an art thriller and many fairly transparent cultural references, Tartt was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

The novel is named after a canvas by the Dutch painter Karel Fabricius (one of Rembrandt's most gifted students). It is this picture that the 13-year-old boy Theodore Dekker, having got out from the rubble of the Metropolitan Museum of Art destroyed after the terrorist attack, takes it out of the building and hides it. He is convinced to do this by an old man dying in the museum, who, among other things, gives Decker a ring and a message for his business partner.

To fulfill the old man’s last will, Dekker goes to his companion, a restorer of antique items named Hobi, and gives him the ring. A few years later, the hero will return to the Hobi antique shop to protect the owner from bankruptcy.

The difficult task of filming a multi-level novel by Tartt fell on the shoulders of the Irish director John Crowley (Brooklyn). The main character was played by Ansel Elgort ("Baby Drive"). The company was composed of Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Sarah Paulson and Finn Wulfard.

"Dear Dad"


The author of "Temporary Difficulties" Mikhail Raskodnikov again took up the theme of fathers and children, but this time opened it in a comedy genre.

Vladimir Vdovichenkov plays the entrepreneurial businessman Vadim Dyumin, who owns a supermarket chain across the country. Dyumin does not want to rest on his laurels and decides to get a large Chinese company as partners ... but the deal hangs in the balance - and the entrepreneur's overconfidence is to blame.

Only six months after the death of the mother for whom the business is registered, Dumin finds out: according to the inheritance scheme, the company has been owned by his daughter Alina for some time, whom he had not seen for many years.

The script for the film was written by one of the authors of the comedy “About Love. For adults only ”Pavel Ruminov (also known as the creator of music videos for Zemfira, the Underwood and Mummy Troll groups).

"Strippers" (Hustlers)


Foreign publications describe the “Stripper” Lorin Scafaria as a cross between “The Eleven Friends of Ocean” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

The film, featuring Jennifer Lopez, Cardi Bee, Lily Reinhart, Constance Wu and singer Lizzo, is based on a true story that journalist Jessica Pressler described in an article for The New York Magazine entitled The Hustlers At Scores. In fact, the film in Scafaria shows how this material was prepared (the role of Presler was played by Julia Styles).

According to the script, the heroine of Wu, the dancer of Destiny, moves to Manhattan to work in an elite strip club, where Wall Street brokers leave money daily. The star of the institution, the Latin American Ramona (Lopez), takes a newly arrived stripper under her wing.

In 2008, the financial crisis of 2008 hit the well-being of the dancers, on which, on the contrary, brokers managed to get rich. Then the girls come up with a way to outwit influential customers and recover lost funds.

In a synopsis of his article, Presler ironically calls the story of strippers from Manhattan a modern story about Robin Hood - but one in which the money never fell into the hands of the poor.

Russian Short: Winners of the Kinotavr - 2019

In the anthology “Russian Brief: Kinotavr Winners - 2019”, the winners of the Kinotavr short films contest held in June were included.

The program of the collection includes a tape entitled "@ Groom" directed by Elizabeth Stishova about an offline meeting of two lovers (obviously, who met by correspondence), as well as the film "Interview" with Alexei Serebryakov as a children's writer who once abandoned his own child.

Also in the almanac was the cemetery satire Paulina Andreeva “I’m crying with you” about a professional mourner at someone else’s funeral, the tape “One Historical Mistake” by Mikhail Mestetsky about the relationship of events that took place in different eras, and took the film “The Kinotavr” short prize Fuel ”(there the hero of Nikita Kukushkina searches, and then cooks fuel for the tractor).

“Bunuel in the labyrinth of turtles” (Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas)


An intricate but very interesting story is associated with the Bunuel. The premiere of the surrealistic film "The Golden Age", shot by Spanish director Luis Bunuel ("Andalusian Dog") based on a script created in collaboration with Salvador Dali, caused a wide public outcry in the early 1930s. The sharply negative reaction of the public for some time left the director without work.

Then anthropologist Maurice Legendre, who was interested in studying the Spanish region of Las Urdes, suggested Bunuel switch to the documentary genre and make a film about this region. A friend of the director, the sculptor Ramon Asin, volunteered to sponsor the new project, who bought a lottery ticket on this occasion and ... won a large sum. As a result, Bunuel released the tape “Las Urdes. Land without bread. "

In 2008, the Spanish animator and comic book author Fermin Solis (who is just from the province of Extremadura, where Las Urdes belongs), dedicated the graphic novel “Bunuel in the Maze of Turtles” to the episode about shooting the movie Bunuel, and the director Salvador Simo made a movie of him in 2018.

The picture was listed in the shortlist of films that were supposed to represent Spain at the award season in Hollywood, but lost to the film “Pain and Glory” by Pedro Almadovar.