On the Premier video service, the serial crime drama “UZZZ” was released by director and screenwriter Stas Ivanov, who previously worked on such films as “Angel or Demon”, “Hunting” and “Walnut”.

Among the producers are Yuri Sapronov ("Pregnancy Test", "The Game of Survival"), Timur Weinstein ("One Hour Before Dawn", "Doctor Lisa") and Natalia Lazareva ("Pregnancy Test 2", "Bad Blood") .

The action takes place in modern Rostov-on-Don.

Filmmakers did not accidentally choose this city.

Initially, the shooting was planned in Moscow, but in the end the team decided that the capital was too “glamourous” for such a story.

In addition, the authors of the tape set themselves the task of filming, among other things, summer and sunny films.

It was in Rostov-on-Don that they managed to implement all their ideas.

In addition, Natalya Lazareva noted that the city is very cinematic, and according to Yuri Sapronov, it has the necessary specialists and lower prices compared to Moscow.

“So fresh, cool.

Everyone is tired of Moscow and St. Petersburg - the same thing.

Gangster Petersburg and glossy, glamorous Moscow.

Plus, it’s getting harder and harder to film every year,” says Yuri Sapronov.

He promised that various beautiful views would be shown on the screen - panoramas, a quarry with clear water, and so on.

According to the producer, it will also be interesting for the audience to see new places for themselves.

  • © Shot from the TV series "UZZZ"

At the same time, the city is shown on the screen as authentically as possible - exactly as it really is.

Yuri Sapronov noted that he was "of course, a little glamoured", but nevertheless, all the scenes were filmed on real objects.

So, a real prison and local slums appear in the frame.

The series got its name in honor of the "Southwest" area, invented by filmmakers.

So they decided to call the unsecured part of the old city.

Also, "UZZZ" has a different meaning - it is an abbreviation of the slang word "use" (from English - "use").

The opening of the tape is reminiscent of "West Side Story", written by Arthur Laurents based on "Romeo and Juliet" and repeatedly filmed.

The main character is a young man named Ravil.

He lives in local "favelas", studies programming and hopes to move to the US.

To do this, he needs to save money.

Ravil takes on various part-time jobs and one day, wanting to hit the jackpot more, joins a criminal gang.

At the same time, he falls in love with Elya, the wealthy niece of the head of another gang.

The heroine is also imbued with sympathy for him, but their environment, of course, is against the relationship of lovers.

The romantic story unfolds against the backdrop of criminal squabbles: two groups enter into a struggle over the division of territory.

However, in the first series, gangster lines are not very intriguing: they set a certain mood, but I want to focus on the first moments of the main characters falling in love - especially since at first the series is perceived as exclusively teenage: young characters only do what they have fun in bars and apartment parties.

Their problems are also quite teenage: Elya suffers from the control of her uncle and wants freedom, and Ravil tries to resolve the conflict with a representative of the opposing gang through a basketball battle.

"UZZZ" tried to do the best for people - those who surround us.

Do not go into intellectualism, into space, namely about boys, about girls, so that they empathize with them.

It seems to me that there has not been such a movie for a long time, since the time of the same “Brother,” says Yuri Sapronov.

  • © Shot from the TV series "UZZZ"

The conflict is rapidly escalating, and harmless showdowns are acquiring a new, much more dangerous format.

In addition, the plot is overgrown with secondary lines related to personal problems and dilemmas of different characters.

All this is organically intertwined, and the story, which at first seems easy and positive, transforms into a multifaceted drama.

According to Yuri Sapronov, YuZZZ is one of the most budget series compared to other projects.

The members of the film crew worked for small fees, but everyone was focused on a quality result.

In addition, the producer noted that a modest budget is not always a bad thing, it gives more creative freedom.

“When there is less money, then there is less attention to you.

They don’t fool you and don’t expect something from you ... And it’s easier for you, there’s no such thing as “oh, they gave us so much money, we need to show how cool it is.

Let's take more expensive actors, a cameraman three times more expensive than you can take.

It interferes.

And when you don’t have an outstanding budget, you are free, you can experiment, and sometimes this experiment is successful, ”the producer notes.

  • © Premier Video Service

Among the performers of the central roles there are little-known actors, which makes what is happening on the screen seem more realistic than it could be with the participation of stars.

So, the lovers were played by Kuzma Kotrelev and Maria Matsel.

For the actor, the role of Ravil became the fifth - he had previously appeared in such films as "The Abode" and "Dawn".

There are a little more works in the filmography of Matsel.

Among them are the "Dyatlov Pass" and the "Department of the S.S.S.R."

Crime bosses Smoke and Koku were played by Anton Kuznetsov and Gela Meskhi.

Also in the series starred Dmitry Chebotarev, Maria Mashkova, Alexander Soshkin, Stanislav Kolodub, Tasha Tsvetkova, debutant Fardi Samedov and others.

Natalya Lazareva said that the most difficult thing was to find suitable young actors - the filmmakers considered so many.

But the director immediately liked Anton Kuznetsov, Stas Ivanov did not see anyone else in the role of Smoke.

At first, the producers did not have an unequivocal opinion on this matter, but in the end they nevertheless trusted the director and were satisfied, which is not surprising: the artists managed to create convincing images and show interesting, unconventional bandits with their own views and philosophy.

Everyone played their part in their own way.

Anton Kuznetsov, for example, arrived in the city before the rest of the film crew to immerse himself in the atmosphere.

In addition, he specially planted his own voice.

They also applied difficult makeup to him: the artist, among other things, painted his beard and eyelashes in a light color.

Having no acting education and experience, Fardi Samedov, in turn, intuitively found a suitable way for himself to join the image.

“The mood of the character suited my vibe, because.

it's no secret that in Buryatia (the actor grew up in Severobaikalsk. -

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) there is crime, like in any provincial city.

Since childhood, I have watched how my elders blaspheme, how they imprison, and who goes free.

This is all my environment.

I collected a little bit from each of my relatives.

Let's say my friend behaved in such a situation ... I somewhere adopted it (behavior. -

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) for myself, then another, third.

I have a collective image of the people I saw.

I know their characters, their manners, the fact that when they are nervous or escalate the atmosphere, for example, they smoke and drill their opponent’s eyes ... I adopted their image and broadcast through myself, ”the artist explained.

  • © Shot from the TV series "UZZZ"

The cinematographer also helped to reliably show Rostovites on the screen by attention to such details as speech - the characters speak exactly as is customary in these places.

Yuri Sapronov said that this is largely the merit of the director, who lived for some time in Rostov-on-Don.

As the local musician, composer of the Kazi project noted with pleasure, the local dialect is shown very naturally and without ridiculing features, which, in his opinion, rarely happens in films.

“In many series, the local dialect is tied to a joke, to stupidity, lack of education.

Here it is very organic... We hear how the actors are talking, especially Dym - the same "gekan", "shok" can be seen in Rostov, and 50-100 km from Rostov.

Moreover, our local language is strongly connected with surzhik, there are a lot of words.

And it is not ridiculed in any way,” Qazi says.

The series did not do without swearing, but, as Sapronov emphasized, it is impossible to shoot stories about street crime without it.

However, a version of "UZZZa" with the age marking "16+" will be available to everyone, where obscene expressions will be removed.

One of the most important elements of the series was the musical accompaniment.

As a reference, the team used the film Taxi 2 by Luc Besson, which featured the work of many French rap artists.

With YUZZZ, the filmmakers also sought to present a cross-section of contemporary hip-hop.

As creative producer Ilya Shaf noted, this is the kind of music young people listen to today.

“Today, on all the streets where the elders ride, and where the younger ones, I even checked for the sake of experiment - mostly hip-hop plays.

It just is, it's today's rock 'n' roll," says Shaf.

At the same time, the tape presents music from other directions.

In total, about 40 songs were written for the series, excluding Kazi's composer works.

“There is ethnic music, Balkan, which we wrote, there is chanson, ska-punk ... After two episodes, when the story starts, the drama gets deeper, we begin to understand that the characters are more complicated, (we see. -

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) how they are intertwined, the music gets deeper.

A lot of orchestral music is included, a lot of instrumental.

Still, hip-hop is quietly ... there is a lot of it, but it fades into the background, because hip-hop still cannot reflect the depth of the drama, ”says Qazi.

The series will have eight episodes in total.

Filmmakers do not exclude that in the future they will shoot the second season, but at the moment they do not set such a goal.