VRAG

USSR, 1937. Rodnoi Ivanovich, a loyal Soviet propagandist is on the clock to finish up his latest speech: all the Party opposition is now gone and a peaceful, bright new future is awaiting. And yet, just as Rodnoi is about to put the final stroke on paper, a mysterious comrade Tchortov pays a visit. He reveals that the official Party policy has changed and that 'our enemies are still very much around.' Tonight Rodnoi must redraft the speech, and with it every truth that he believed in.

Adapted from the stage-play ‘Vrag: Stalin’s New Truth.’ 

crew

producer - Sibylle Ariès

writer • director • executive producer - Ivantiy Novak

DOP - Julio Cármenes

Editor - George Gray

1st AD - Alberto Lais

Lighting - Vic Ganga

Sound - Elliot Grierson-Hurdle

Production & Set Design - Maria Rangel

Wardrobe & Makeup - Rachel Wu

1st AC - Ferran Guillén & Serkan Yellice

2nd AD - Rolando Montecalvo

BTS - Jessiva Salvi

cast

Rodnoi - Ivantiy Novak

Tchortov - Archie Moore

Sasha - Kyle Harrison-Pope

the project

I started pre-production on this concomitantly with rehearsals for the stage-play. The text was heavily re-worked in order to contain the story within the parameters of film, with movement and blocking radically changed to suit the constrained space. 

Extensive preparatory work was done in collaboration with DP Julio Cármenes on the look of the film, while Sibylle Ariès proved indispensable in all the organisational aspects of production. I worked closely with the costume designer & set designer as well as the wardrobe department to authenticate the period setting, as well as invite an atmosphere of enclosure and restraint into a surrealist framework. The aesthetic of the film was heavily influenced by the work of cinematographer Georgy Rerberg in Uncle Vanya, Pyotr Kataev in Seventeen Moments of Spring, as well as photographs found in Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers; while the core of the story took its roots from Ivan’s scene with the devil in Fyodor Dostoyevskiy’s The Brothers Karamazov. All of this the editor, George Gray, composed together in the edit room in 3 days straight as I sat behind his shoulder.

The film was shot on Blackmagic Pyxis 6K, with principal photography lasting 3 days.