Valerii Ogorodnikov

Born in 1951 in Nizhnii Tagil, Ogorodnikov currently lives and works in St. Petersburg. In 1974 he graduated from the Urals Polytechnic Institute (Sverdlovsk) and in 1984-from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) where he studied in Igor' Talankin's workshop. Ogorodnikov' first full feature film Burglar (1987) became an important phenomenon within the "youth cinema," receiving a FIPRESCI award at the Venice Film festival in 1987. Ogorodnikov often writes the scripts of his own films.

The Barrack [Barak] (1999)

Running time: 112 min. Russia. Color & B/W
Production: DAR, TV Tsentr, Goskino, VIAFILM Production (Germany)

Director: Valerii Ogorodnikov
Script: Viktor Petrov, Valerii Ogorodnikov
Camera: Iurii Klimenko
Designer: Vera Zelinskaia, Viktor Ivanov
Producers: Viktor Izvekov, Leonid Iarmol'nik, Rol'f Iaster
Cast: Evgenii Sidikhin, Iuliia Svezhakova, Leonid Iarmol'nik, Irina Senotova

The film received the "Silver Leopard" award at the 52th International Film Festival in Locarno (Switzerland) and the Grand Prize "Window to Europe" at the Film Festival in Vyborg.

The makers of the film dedicated it to the generation of their parents, who grew up in communal apartments and industrial barracks. The film is set in the in a small provincial town in the Urals in 1953, in the period between the death of Stalin and the execution of Beriia. Politics, however, has little place in the film, which, instead, reflects on post-war Russian life, both collective and individual. In contrast to many recent Russian films, The Barrack is filmed in a way that emphasizes its creative use of photography.

Director Filmography:

1982 Voices in the Air
1983 I Don't Know How to Come On Time (diploma film, short)
1986 Prishvin's Paper Eyes
1987 Burglar
1991 Opus of Delirium of Love Enchantment
1999 The Barrack

Bibliography:

Iurii Gladil'shchikov, review of the film in Itogi (3 August 1999)

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