Marina Tsurtsumiya (Russian:Марина Романовна Цурцумия; February 3, 1964) is a Moscow based director and activist best known for her 1993 film Only Death Comes for Sure.
Early life and education
editTsurtsumiya was exposed to the film industry at a young age by her parents. Her mother, studying at VGIK to become a film critic, would take Tsurtsumiya to classes with her. Her father, Roman Tsurtsumiya was a camera-operator who worked with Sergei Gerasimov and as a director of photography for Sergei Bondarchuk.[1] He later became a director in his own right. Tsurtsumiya's father inspired her to take up the craft, “He took me on shoots with him sometimes when I was still very young, 7 or 8. That’s when I decided that my future would be in the cinema.”[2]
In her final year of secondary school, Tsurtsumiya applied to VGIK film school and was rejected. She used her father's connections to work as an editor at Gorky Studio until she could apply again. After a year she was accepted and studied with the science fiction director A.M. Zguridi.[2] At 19, she was the youngest student in her class of eight and said of the experience, "they treated me like a child."[2] After graduating in 1987 Tsurtsumiya again worked at Gorky studio for a time before branching out into independent cinema.
Tsurtsumiya's ethnic background is a mix of Belarusian, Polish, and Georgian heritage.[2] She says her blended lineage impacts the kinds of stories she chooses to tell through her filmmaking. In an interview she noted, "I'm really not able to say what nationality I am" and that this made her want to "make films which unite people."[2]
Career
editMarina Tsurtsumiya dabbled in political advertising, directing videos for the Russian branch of Greenpeace, and in 1986 directed commercials for Boris Yeltsin's presidential campaign.[3] She also worked for two years as Artistic Director of the advertising agency Art Kraft. She also worked for various charitable organizations and also curated art exhibitions, including the first to show people with developmental disabilities at Russia's Contemporary Art Centre Winzavod.[4] She now owns Tsurtsum Cafe in Moscow located in the Winzavod Centre.[5][6]
Tsurtsumiya made a number of documentaries that explored various topics related to the history of Russia's capital including Moscow Military and Stronger than Death is Love, a film about Moscow's first hospice. She also collaborated with director Lev Kulidzhanov on a series of historical films about the 21st century titled Recollection of Something.
Tsurtsumiya struggled with the shift in the film industry during the perestroika period. The film production model changed from government supported films in line with state ideology to an industry that promoted films that made a profit. Tsurtsumiya lamented in a 1992 interview, “Now we have new possibilities, but also a new complication--the notion that profit can be made from art. We are in big danger of commercialization."[2] She added in a different interview, "I don’t shoot very difficult films, but they’re not commercial pictures.”[1]
In a 2009 interview, Russian art-house distributor Raisa Fomina commented on Marina Tsurtsumiya's move away from cinema and into the restaurant business. He said, using Tsurtsumiya as an example, "Seeing that the audience is inert, that their work is not interesting to anyone, that it is useless to wait for support from the state, some talented people leave the profession, start doing something else."[6]
Only Death Comes for Sure
editTsurtsumiya's first feature film, Only Death Comes for Sure, was completed in 1993. The dramatic film is based on the Gabriel Garcia Marquez story, “No One Writes to the Colonel”, but the setting is changed from Colombia to war-torn Georgia. Despite playing at several international film festivals, Only Death Comes for Sure was not offered a distribution deal in Russia.
National Film Award winning critic Rashmi Doraiswamy praised Tsurtsumiya's film, "The desolation of a strife-torn city, of the aged couple waiting for decades for their pension papers to be cleared as history changes tracks rapidly, and the youth who live both in and out of the political situation they are in ... all are captured sensitively in the visual, in the sound-track and in the pacing by the director."[7]
Filmography
edit| Year | Title | Run time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Visiting | 10 min. | |
| 1987 | Recollection of Something | 30 min. | |
| 1989 | Architect Konstantin Melnikov | 40 min. | Documentary film |
| 1990 | Spain: The Light and Shadows of the Republic | 70 min. | Documentary film |
| 1990 | Dominus | 70 min. | |
| 1993 | Only Death Comes for Sure | 135 min. | Feature film |
| 1995 | Moscow Military | 26 min. | Documentary film |
| 1997 | Closer to the Sky | 13 min. | Documentary film |
| 1999 | Stronger than Death is Love | 16 min. | Documentary film |
| 2004 | The Formula of the Wall | 26 min. | Documentary film |
| 2005 | The Road to Stalingrad | 26 min. | |
| 2007 | Where do the Children Come From? | 90 min. | Feature film |
References
edit- ^ a b Faraday, George (2000). Revolt of the Filmmakers: The Struggle for Artistic Autonomy and the Fall of the Soviet Film Industry. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 165. ISBN 978-0-271-01983-3.
- ^ a b c d e f Atwood, Lynne (1993). Red Women on the Silver Screen: Soviet Women and Cinema from the beginning to the end of the Communist era. Harpercollins. p. 234. ISBN 0044405618.
- ^ "Lecturer: Marina Tsurtsumiya". Theory and Practice. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
- ^ Garanina, Ekaterina (September 18, 2017). "Speakers for NGOs: how to make charitable and social projects successful". Retrieved March 5, 2017.
- ^ Brennan, James (May 2, 2013). "Moscow, a City Tasting Tour". Fine Dining Lovers. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
- ^ a b Paisova, Elena (July 2009). "Raisa Fomina: Visibility and Reality. State and art house". The Art of Cinema. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
- ^ Doraiswamy, Rashmi (2010). Twilight Zones, Asian Cinema in the Cis Redefines Itself." In Asian Film Journeys: Selections from Cinemaya. New Delhi: Wisdom Tree. p. 387. ISBN 978-81-8328-178-2.