On April 27, the Rossiya channel starts showing the action-packed detective series Black Sea. The project was directed by Sergey Shcherbin, who repeatedly released films on historical subjects. His track record includes the series Passion for Chapay, Son of the Father of Peoples, Ascent to Olympus, and others (according to the director, historical paintings attract him with the opportunity to plunge into the era and understand what people lived at one time or another).
The action of the new Shcherbin project takes place in Novorossiysk in the spring of 1944 - during the Great Patriotic War, shortly before the start of the Crimean offensive operation. Near the shore, a barge explodes with cargo, which was heading towards the warship and only by fortuitous chance did not manage to reach the target. Smersh employees find out that German submariners are preparing to destroy the main combat units of the fleet. To interfere with their plans, captain of the second rank Sergey Saburov (Pavel Trubiner) is transferred to the Black Sea Fleet. He, along with other counterintelligence, will try to stop the saboteurs.
As the director said in an interview with RT, in this project he was primarily attracted by a strong detective story. He explained that the Black Sea is a real action movie. Even after the capture of one saboteur, the danger does not disappear and the military are forced to respond without being distracted by thoughts.
The heroes of the picture really have no time to be distracted. Already in the first minutes, viewers will see a spectacular scene - the explosion of a barge. From this moment, the flow of dynamic events practically does not stop: on the screen, with small breaks to discuss what is happening, the military are chasing and shooting.
Despite an important historical component and an exciting detective story, filmmakers paid much attention to another direction, more lyrical and emotional - the history of the main character and the theme of women in the war as a whole.
- © Shot: TV channel "Russia"
The heroine of Ekaterina Vilkova - captain of the third rank Elena Soleil - with her husband serves in the Navy. At first glance, the fragile girl has great inner strength and unbending character. She does not relax for a second, does not succumb to momentary feelings and selflessly fulfills her duty: in a word, in no way inferior to the men around her.
“I was interested in this line and in general was struck by the topic of women in the war. It is amazing how she, an officer of Smersh, acted in such conditions on a par with men, and sometimes even steeper than men, ”said Sergey Shcherbin.
At some points, including due to the strong game of Vilkova, which overshadows the other characters in the frame, this topic comes to the fore.
Gradually it turns out that with the recently arrived Saburov, Soleil associates much more than it might have seemed from the beginning. The past of the characters becomes one of the main intrigues of the series: it is not immediately clear why Soleil so hates Saburov. Their backstory is told in parallel with the main events with the help of colorful flashbacks.
If the main story - a detective story - sometimes fades into the background, yielding to lyrical moments, then the visual component of the film attracts attention throughout the whole story. Aerial viewers are shown the ruined Novorossiysk and beautiful landscapes of the coast. The underwater shooting, which took place in the deep-sea basin near Moscow, is even more impressive.
According to Sergei Shcherbin, specially for the difficult underwater scene, production designer Sergey Golubev built a seven-meter guided torpedo, which in appearance completely corresponded to a combat projectile. First, the torpedo was shot in Taganrog, where it was slightly deformed.
“We were faced with the fact that she did not plunge into the pool, drowned her for several hours. As a result, we had to go to some technical tricks, ”said the director.
At the same time, he emphasized that all the problems were of a technical nature, and there were no difficulties with the actors, including when shooting this particular scene.
“Pavel Trubiner brilliantly descended independently to a depth of six meters. He was engaged in scuba diving and is in great shape. And even under water, he continued to play! Of course, not every actor is capable of this, ”said Sergey Shcherbin, adding that at the stage of the casting experience diving to great depths was not required from the artists.
“When selecting actors, it is important that they match the psychophysical data of the character, fall into the role. If anything, things like diving will be done by understudies. But we are lucky that Pavel has such good data and capabilities, ”the director said.
- © Shot: TV channel "Russia"
The series was also shot in Rostov-on-Don, Serpukhov and at Moscow State Mining University. In addition, a large block of material was filmed in Taganrog - it was this city that "played" the destroyed Novorossiysk.
“In Taganrog, we shot every month and a half on the coast. It was very important for us to remove the naturalistic plans that are mandatory for a movie related to the sea. Speaking in professional terms, so that we do not get stuck in the interiors, which is very often the case in TV shows. We have a movie about sailors, because every day we shot as much as possible on the sea, ”said the director.
Part of the shooting took place on the territory of real historical objects. One of the main locations was the Military History Museum of the North Caucasus Military District, located in the District Officers House in Rostov-on-Don. In the tape there is a base of German saboteurs. According to the director, this museum has an extensive underground system, bunkers and passages, which also came in handy on the set.