For Russian film director Andrey Gryazev, tipping over a police car would be a normal day in Moscow. This was one of the many scenes he had to witness while shooting his newest film, “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow” is a documentary of a Russian art group named Voina, or the War, known for their political protest art.
“Voina has grabbed a lot of attention from the public by doing different types of actions on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Some of their actions are very provocative and really humiliate the authority of the Russian government,” said professor of Russian language Elena McGee.
Gryazev’s previous two films dealt with Russian government and politics. For “Tomorrow,” he wanted to stay true to his theme, but wanted to execute it differently.
“I wanted to find people who were actually engaging the government in their dialogue. When I learned about Voina on the Internet, I wanted to know who they were, what they were about, why they’re doing what they were doing and how they lived,” Gryazev said.
“I couldn’t get any replies from the media, so I contacted the group and met with them myself. They accepted me as someone who would be filming their actions,” Gryazev said.
Gryazev’s main objective of the film was to create an unbiased point of view so people could form their own opinions about Voina.
“For the first year of filming, I would download the video, file it away and not look at it. This was so I wouldn’t be looking at the group from a distance. It became important to make the film longer and include a variety of scenes so viewers could get a sense of the whole situation,” Gryazev said.
On Thursday, the Global Cinema Film Series featured a screening of “Tomorrow” and Gryazev answered questions after the film.
The film screening was just one of many of the Global Cinema Series. The series features new international films on campus that are free for students and open to the public. The series is hosted by Department of Modern and Classical Languages Chair Hildegard Glass.
“It’s really important to us to show international films that are not typically shown in movie theaters available to students and the community,” Glass said.
