Alexey Pimanov.
Photo: Alexey FOKIN (photo)
Movies are shot in the country, football is played in the country, the country lives an almost peaceful life, but at the same time a special military operation is being carried out. This was discussed in the studio of Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda with the president of the Krasnaya Zvezda media holding, the host of the television program Man and the Law and film director Alexei Pimanov.
COMEDY IS NEEDED IN DIFFICULT TIMES
– Your new movie “The Oligarch Driver” has been released.
– Now times are not easy, in these times it is necessary, among other things, to make comedies. The story is wonderful. There is an heir to a billionaire – this is Pasha Priluchny. He has nothing to do, that’s why he argues all the time. He fought with the character played by Alexey Chadov. They argue about working for a month as a driver for a fucking artist who fires any driver in two weeks. They argue for a month. I have long wanted to film Priluchny in the main role. The film has a generally strong cast.
– It seems that the superhero niche is empty; There aren’t many Russians, maybe Major Grom. Should we follow the Americans?
– Is our public very different from the American public in terms of the perception of a superhero? “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” won an Oscar because Americans understood this film well. This is our “Cinderella”.
– Is mass production of television series good?
– 300-400 television series a year. About a full hundred meters. Of those, I think ten to one and a half percent will start shooting next year.
– There is a feeling that many are damp…
– There are few talented people. There are many C-rated directors and screenwriters. But I was lucky. So we wrote the script for “Eleven Silent Men” with the Presnyakov brothers. And they wrote “The Driver-Oligarch” with them. The Presnyakovs are wonderful authors. We also wrote a movie, which I hope to film next year. About how Muscovites saved the Kremlin from explosions in 1812. When Napoleon left Moscow, he ordered the entire Kremlin to be mined. And we came up with a story about how the Russians saved him.
– Are there echoes in modern times?
– Certainly. Every movie needs a key. I read to Napoleon de Segur’s adjutant how they entered the Arbat. Nobody knew them. They began to enter the houses, and there the tea on the tables was not cold and there were no people, and expensive paintings, interiors and palaces were abandoned. There is no one and he says: then we realized we would lose.
Actor Pavel Priluchny.
Photo: Boris KUDRYAVOV
WHERE IS THE MAN, WHERE IS THE LAW
– Is there a growing demand for justice in society?
– Yes. I can increase the show’s ratings by one and a half times if I start showing bad behavior. As many crime-themed channels do. But one day, when Konstantin Lvovich Ernst suddenly asked me why this story was off topic, I replied: the title of this program contains not only “law”, but also “man”. And we will not do a criminal program, but about people. And off-air, we often ask both the Ministry of the Interior and the prosecutor’s office to investigate the situation. And, as a rule, they solve it.
PEOPLE ON SCREENS
– Do you have any recipe to get people back to their televisions?
– That’s what you think. Five percent of our country’s population kept telling everyone that “they don’t watch television,” like “the whole country.” But polls and ratings show that is not the case. In general, I don’t care where “Man and the Law” is seen. There is no such thing: Internet against television, television against radio, radio against everyone. There is a content war. Especially when Telegram channels appeared. Trust is needed here. I think that over time the brands “New York Times”, “Guardian”, “Izvestia”, RIA “Novosti”, “Man and Law”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” will remain. Brands that are trustworthy or untrustworthy. They will live with them. It doesn’t matter where they are read. It doesn’t matter where Komsomolskaya Pravda is read: electronically, on an electronic device or on paper. It doesn’t matter at all. The main thing is what you have produced, whether you lie or not. I know you’re not lying.
– Are Channel One and the Zvezda TV channel not trying to attract a younger audience?
– Canal “Estrella” or Canal Uno, we understand that watching television is, relatively speaking, 40+. Why should we try to embrace vastness?
CRUEL SPORT
– Complex processes are taking place in our sport, there are many harsh statements, stars are changing their sports citizenship: how to react to this?
– I know a lot of people from the world of football. When they start to say: we have to leave, play strong championships, I ask them: do you want full stadiums here and businesses here? Look at the experience of the British. At one time they ranked fifth in Europe. The British left to play in other countries. The Italians were number one, the Spanish second and then the Germans. The British began to work. They began to think that their people and their families should come to their stadiums, there should be order, there should be no swearing, there should be no crowds, there should be stars and attractive slogans… And the best players should want to come here. Well, I think that when creating wonderful stadiums, we should create a cult for the players, even the young ones. Look at Samara’s “Wings of the Soviets”. And I don’t understand why our best players should leave and not earn a lot of money here and grow up like Bobrov, Beskov, Blokhin grew up here… Why did the great football players grow up and grow in large numbers, but not very rich? Brazil? There is a cult of the game, there is a focus. Yes, the best will not come to us yet while we have a special military operation.
2016 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Krasnaya Zvezda media president support Alexei Pimanov at a People’s Football League match. Photo: Alexander Shcherbak/TASS
– Has the level of play in our championship decreased in the last two years?
– Entertainment – no. Game level? Well, yes, there were Hulk and Witzel, there were Brazilians in Spartak. And now is a unique time when you can raise your youth. Well, if you invest in this, believe me, there are so many guys who finish playing football at 20 years old, because this happens: they didn’t make it and that’s it. Let’s raise ours! You would think that when Hulk and other superstars were around, we won the Champions League!
– When the USSR team won the European championship in 1960, the motivation was not money.
– Then there was the ideology and the great coaches. They raised talented guys who strove to defeat everyone on their own territory, and then on someone else’s. CSKA against Dynamo, Dynamo against Spartak – our championship became an internal cult story. The British did the same. Visiting a football stadium should become, as in England, a cult.
WONDERLAND
– We have an incredible country, our people can endure things that they cannot endure in any other country…
– When in March 2022, many of my friends, horrified, withdrew money and fled through Upper Lars towards Georgia, shouting that it was all over, this society will not tolerate this, it will not tolerate sanctions, the Northern Military District will not tolerate it. will bear. , no one will go to the front, no one will not help… A year and a half has passed. Suddenly it turned out that this had not disappeared: neither cohesion, nor mutual help, nor the ability to understand each other. We are looking at what is happening in the Middle East: is this possible here? We have a country with all major religions, and does anyone fight with anyone on this basis except fools?
– What about the Makhachkala incident?
– This is a separate case. In general, does anyone here say that Islam is higher than Orthodoxy and that Orthodoxy is higher than Islam, or Jews, or Buddhists? We have a power that says: we all live within the framework of a great, great civilization. We were built on this foundation of equality. And we never got along. We managed to reach an agreement, both in the empire and in the Soviet Union and in modern Russia. In Moscow we support both Dynamo kyiv and Tbilisi.
– Now it’s unlikely.
– Well, when did it happen that in the Soviet Union we did not consider Ukrainians and Georgians brothers? Perhaps the Baltic countries have always remained separate, like another civilization.
– But in the end everything fell apart.
– 30 years ago. Yes, they always predicted that we would fall apart. Now they were sure that sanctions would be imposed: empty shelves, everyone would flee, young people would take to the streets and demolish everyone. But everything happened exactly the other way around. We have our own traditions. We do what they don’t do. Our people are very sociable and friendly. Even more than necessary.
– Have the last two years been good for us?
“We have just realized that our strength does not depend on anyone. It’s fantastic that a country can trust its own science, its aviation industry, its own military industry and its own guys who serve. And now we have the best army in the world. This generation is absolutely amazing. Believe me, when they return from the special operation, a new elite will come.
