Pavel Kogan

“Like the right and left hand Your soul is close to my soul We are sealed shut, blissfully and warmly, Like the right and left wing…” The life and art of Pavel Kogan and Lyudmila Stanukinas, two famous Leningrad documentary filmmakers, can best be expressed by the Tsvetaeva stanza cited above. They are the main characters of this film, which their student Viktor Kossakovsky shot during Pavel Kogan’s final months. For Lyudmila Stanukinas, Lyalya, as those close to her called her, her husband was her only reason for existence. She was with him until the end and held onto his extinguishing life as much as she could.

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This poetic core in youngsters is also touched in Stanukina's less known Your very personal poetry (Свои, совсем особые стихи, 1982), a wonderful film about a poetry class. It is here that one recalls Kogan's admiration of Lyalya's emotional documentary skills. And it is here that one recalls Kosakovsky's depiction of Lyalya as a person of extraordinarily prosperous feelings, sensitive and energetic, childish and female, shrill and quiet. The young poets are marvellously sneaky, respectfully adoring and creatively playing with - maybe even deconstructing - "Aleksandr Sergeevich", Mr. Pushkin, Russia's exclusive trade mark of high culture and literature.

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Alisa Freyndlikh in a rush — there isn't a single calm, free minute. Rehearsals, discussions of roles with Igor Vladimirov, her daughter Varya's birthday, daytime and evening performances, meetings with the audience...

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Portrait of test pilot Alexander Shcherbakov.

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The art of theater is a complex craft. In 19 minutes, you can’t convey everything that is taught over five years. Our film is only a short walk through the Lunacharsky State Institute of Theatre Arts, a cinematic panorama of three directing classes. The classes of M. O. Knebel, A. A. Goncharov, and A. V. Efros.

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Using the example of one GITIS course, led by People's Artist of the Republic Professor Maria Osipovna Knebel, the training methods for future theatre directors are demonstrated.

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