Roads to Koktebel

Koktebel is a film about a father and son on a voyage of discovery. Carol Murphy talks to the two first-time directors, Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebsky, about the beauty and tactility of cinema, and the new crop of Russian filmmakers.

Koktebel is the very simple story of a journey taken by a man and his 11 year-old son after the death of the man's wife. They travel from their home in Moscow to Koktebel in rural Russia, where his sister in law lives. Together, and with no money, they sleep rough in the vast damp countryside or in open rail cars. Much to the bored but quiet impatience of the son their journey is delayed and hampered – by the father's alcoholism; by taking odd jobs; and particularly by a young doctor who attends to the father's wounds after he is hurt in a confrontation with a gruff rural landowner. A crucial change occurs when the boy decides to leave his father one night, and make his way to Koktebel alone.

Koktebel is a tremendously assured and patient film which encapsulates the period of change from being a child to being a grown-up. The film is like something that is lodged in our memory and seems strange to us now, but which was real to us sometime ago. Barely visible scenes of an eleven year old boy's hand tracing the wool on a flock of sheep as he moves through their shifting bodies, or as he runs through fields of tall grass alone on his journey at night, are so evocative, tactile and reminiscent of Terence Malik's detailed filmic intimacy.

The film was first conceived in 1995, and germinated through a series of journeys taken by the first time feature filmmakers. Directors Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebsky slept in tents with their director of photography Berkeshi as they travelled along the route taken by protagonists – father and son – to gather information about the landscape and the rural communities.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 102