Cannes favorite director Nikolai Khomeriki

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Nikolay Khomeriki, who was born in Belokamennaya in 1975, at first could not decide on a profession for a long time. At the insistence of his parents, the future director graduated from an economic university, became an accountant in a branch of the Coca-Cola company. Having proved himself properly, he went to Amsterdam to continue his education and get an MBA degree. In addition, the young man created a joint venture for the supply of household chemicals to the capital. Business developed successfully, but fate was adamant.

First steps in the film industry

While studying at one of the Moscow economic universities, Nikolai Khomeriki became a regular at the Museum of Cinema, gradually he began to study this subspecies of art. While in Amsterdam, he joined the local video library, continued self-education, revising the classics of cinema. Surprisingly, Khomeriki discovered that in Russia there is a special understanding of the classics of cinema, according to which Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Bergman occupy the Olympus of cinematography, and no less talented directors are not so highly rated. The more I lookedfilms, the future director, the more he began to be interested in lesser-known authors. Among the films that influenced the formation of Khomeriki's creative thought are A. Tarkovsky's Stalker, films by French New Wave directors that amaze Nikolai with their ease of dramaturgy, and individual films by German filmmakers. According to the director, he admires the work of Rainer Fassbinder, whom no one in Russia puts on the same level with world-famous classics, since he managed to shoot two films a year. For the Soviet/Russian school, this is unconvincing and not monumental.

The beginning of the creative path

Upon returning to Moscow, Nikolai Khomeriki submits documents for admission to the higher courses of directors and screenwriters. By this time, he had not filmed a single frame and was a complete layman in how movies are made. V. Khotinenko became his mentor, although A. German had a greater influence in the process of study. The debut work of Khomeriki was a three-minute sketch "Drop" highly appreciated by the Sopot Film Festival. After a triumphant statement about himself in the world of cinema, Nikolai Khomeriki was awarded a grant from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for postgraduate studies at one of the national leading film schools La Femis. After completing his education, French film director Philippe Garrel invited Nikolai to become his assistant during the filming of the film Regular Lovers.

Big Movie

Director Nikolai Khomeriki before creating an existential parable977 has made some pretty impressive short films. The film "Nine Seven Seven" was ranked by domestic film critics as "intellectual trash", a special genre of modern cinema. According to the plot, all the characters in the film are voluntary participants in some kind of experiment. They are subjected not only to scientific examinations, but also to tests of everyday life - love, friendship, curiosity and envy. As a result, the originally conceived scientific experiment turns into a social one, and the consequences threaten to become unpredictable.

About a sealed world

After participating in the Un Certain Regard subcompetition of the Cannes Film Festival, Nikolai Khomeriki, whose films have already become the property of the world film community, in a creative alliance with cameraman Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev decides to tell the world a fairy tale based on the script of screenwriter Alexander Rodionov. The screenwriter managed to find a new story and create a script for a film about a bottled up world. The name of the new project was chosen with great care, as the authors tried to put a certain message into the name. "The Tale of the Darkness" immediately after the creation was positioned as a Russian art house. The plot introduced the viewer to the fate of the main character - a very beautiful and clean girl who, working in the children's room of the police, is trying in every possible way to adapt to the surrounding reality. In many films, including this project of Khomeriki, the ex-ballerina, actress Alisa Khazanova was filmed. The director met her in France. At that time, Khazanova was incaptivity of deep depression due to a serious injury that interrupted her ballet career at the peak of success. It was the director who was destined to become the person who gave the girl hope, helped to find a new profession. "Fairy Tale …" eminent film critics call the beginning of the director's rapid evolution, the flowering of his original style.

Dynamic but not mainstream cinema

A Tale of Darkness and its follow-up, Boomerang Hearts, entered the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The last ribbon is black and white, light and devilishly beautiful. The brainchild of Khomerka was again received with admiration, and the status of a Cannes favorite was assigned to the director. The plot of the drama "Boomerang Hearts" would be ideal for a long-running melodramatic television series. A young guy, Kostya, who works as an assistant driver, is given a disappointing diagnosis. According to the verdict of the medical experts, he could die at any moment due to an inoperable heart disease. The hero keeps emotions in himself, and no longer thinking about the meaning of life, he tries to take everything from it.

Disarmingly unpretentious

The director's next project, Onega, disarms the viewer with its unpretentiousness. The film sketch is a long shot of a little girl staring at the camera without blinking, edited with a long shot of the calm surface of the water that flickers through the window of the train. The duration of the project is only three minutes. Shot by cameraman AlisherKhamidkhodzhaev, Nikolai Khomeriki most willingly cooperates with him. The director's wife in an interview with the media said that this short film is an excerpt filmed during the filming of a film about autistic children Lyubov Arkus. By the way, the director's wife is Stasya Khomeriki-Grankovskaya, a dramatic actress. Most recently, she made her debut in her husband's series En Secrets (2015), playing the supporting role of Ida.