ALEXANDER SOKHUROV’S ROUND TABLE

Do you reflect about how your film influence people?

 “I don’t think about the people that watch my films. I think that every film has its viewers and it must find them. As a director, I cannot adapt to mass audiences. When the spectator comes to the cinema theatre, the director suggests to him what he wants to show him, imposing on him his actors, his editing, music and story. The viewers is a consumer of visual arts, just as they are consumers of food. It seems to me the viewers have no active role in the film process.”

How did your European education affect you?

“I have in myself an equilibrium of Russian and European influence. I have read Dostoievski, Zola and Dickens, listened to Tchaikovski and Mozart. We all consist of various components and I couldn’t part of my European part because breathing Russian oxygen is not enough for me. But by character, I am a Russian.”

What is your next project?

“I am working on a documentary and a feature film. I like both forms. I know no film that is totally sincere. For me, the most important thing is to create a film with artistic value, by choosing documentary or feature form, depending on the context. We have finished this film called Francophonie, about the year 1940, when the Fascist army marched into Paris, the developments at the time and the historical implications it caused. I am both the writer and director and this is a feature film with documentary bits.