1.
Rossiya Theatre
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The Rossiya Theatre, formerly known as the Pushkinsky Cinema is monument of architecture and currently the largest theatre in Moscow operated by Stage Entertainment. It is located in Pushkinskaya Square, since the early 1960s, it was the largest cinema hall in Europe and the main cinema hall of the USSR. The Rossiya Cinema was built in 1961 and became the largest of its kind in Europe, the cinema has always hosted major events, such as the Moscow International Film Festival. In 1997, The Rossiya was leased to the film distributor Karo Film. The Pushkinsky was leased in 2012 to Stage Entertainment Russia for a period of five years
2.
Pushkinskaya Square
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Pushkinskaya Square or Pushkin Square in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow. It was historically known as Strastnaya Square, and renamed for Alexander Pushkin in 1937 and it is located at the junction of the Boulevard Ring and Tverskaya Street,2 kilometres northwest of the Kremlin. It is not only one of the busiest city squares in Moscow, the former Strastnaya Square name originates from the Passion Monastery, which was demolished in the 1930s. At the center of the square is a statue of Pushkin, funded by public subscription and unveiled by Ivan Turgenev. In 1950, Joseph Stalin had the moved to the other side of the Tverskaya Street. Media related to Pushkinskaya Square at Wikimedia Commons 3D model of Pushkinskaya Square
3.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
4.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
5.
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
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The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival is one of the oldest in the world and has become Central, the pre-war dream of many enthusiastic filmmakers materialized in 1946 when a non-competition festival of films from seven countries took place in Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary. Above all it was intended to screen the results of the recently nationalized Czechoslovak film industry, after the first two years the festival moved permanently to Karlovy Vary. The Karlovy Vary IFF first held a film competition in 1948. Since 1951, a jury has evaluated the films. The Karlovy Vary competition quickly found a place among other developing festivals, the social and political changes that took place after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 pushed concerns about organizing the Karlovy Vary IFF to the background. The program for 1990 was saved by the release of a collection of Czechoslovak films which had locked up for years in a storage vault. And the appearance of a number of guests such as Miloš Forman, Lindsay Anderson, Annette Bening. Financial problems and a lack of interest on the part of the government, in 1994 the 29th Karlovy Vary IFF inaugurated an entirely new tradition. After nearly forty years of alternating with the Moscow IFF, the festival once again to take place every year. The Karlovy Vary Film Festival Foundation was set up in 1993 co-created by the Ministry of Culture, The City of Karlovy Vary, actor Jiří Bartoška was invited to be the festivals president, and Eva Zaoralová became program director in 1995. Since 1998 the organization of the festival has been carried out by Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary, the documentary competition is an important festival event. The extensive informative program features both distribution pre-premiers and films awarded at other festivals, for the tenth straight year the festival will present Variety Critics Choice, new and interesting films of mainly European production selected by critics working at this prestigious magazine. Seminars focusing primarily on European film are another important part of the festival, thousands of visitors and the great variety of films testify to the effectiveness of the program team with program director Eva Zaoralová at its head. The festival program has the following sections, Official Selection - Competition – films never before shown in competition at any international festival. East of the West - Competition – films from the former socialist bloc, documentary Films - Competition – a competition divided into two parts, documentaries less than and longer than 30 minutes. Horizons and Another View – a selection of the most remarkable contemporary films, imagina - films with an unconventional approach to narration and style, distinctive and radical visions of film language. Out of the Past - classic, cult, rare and unfairly overlooked films, screened in their original, future Frames, Ten New Filmmakers To Follow - ten directors, an upcoming generation of young European filmmakers, present their student films
6.
Saint George
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Saint George, according to legend, was a Roman soldier of Syrian origin and officer in the Guard of Roman emperor Diocletian, who ordered his death for failing to recant his Christian faith. As a Christian martyr, he became one of the most venerated saints in Christianity. In hagiography, as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and one of the most prominent military saints, he is immortalised in the myth of Saint George and his memorial, Saint Georges Day, is traditionally celebrated on April 23. Numerous countries, cities, professions and organisations claim Saint George as their patron, accounts differ regarding whether George was born in Cappadocia or Syria Palaestina, but agree that he was raised at least partly in Lydda. There is little information on the life of Saint George. Two stories tell of his possible origins, one says that he was born in the region of Cappadocia, which is now located in central Turkey. Georges parents were both Christian, and they brought him up to be a Christian and his father died when he was fourteen, and his mother took George back to her homeland of Palestine. At seventeen, he joined the Roman army, a second story says that Georges father came from Cappadocia. His mother was from Lydda, in Palestine, and George was born in Lydda, both of his parents were from noble Syrian families and gave him the Greek name of Georgios. Georges father had been an officer in the Roman army, so George joined the Roman army as soon as he could, an earlier work by Eusebius, Church history, written in the 4th century, contributed to the legend but did not name George or provide significant detail. A critical edition of a Syriac Acta of Saint George, accompanied by an annotated English translation, was published by E. W. Brooks in 1925. Pope Gelasius I stated that George was among those whose names are justly reverenced among men. The traditional legends have offered a narration of Georges encounter with a dragon. The modern legend that follows below is synthesised from early and late hagiographical sources, chief among the legendary sources about the saint is the Golden Legend, which remains the most familiar version in English owing to William Caxtons 15th-century translation. At the age of 14, George lost his father, a few years later, George then decided to go to Nicomedia and present himself to Diocletian to apply for a career as a soldier. Diocletian welcomed him with arms, as he had known his father. By his late twenties, George was promoted to the rank of military tribune, however, George objected, and with the courage of his faith, approached the Emperor and ruler. Diocletian was upset, not wanting to lose his best tribune, but George loudly renounced the Emperors edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian
7.
Coat of arms of Moscow
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The coat of arms of Moscow depicts a horseman with a spear in his hand slaying a basilisk and is identified with Saint George and the Dragon. The heraldic emblem of Moscow has been a part of the coat of arms of Russia since the 16th century. The emblem had its origins in the Byzantine tradition of depicting a patron saint of the monarch on his seal. Yaroslav the Wise was the first Russian ruler to have Saint George as his patron saint. Accordingly, he founded several cities and churches in the name of that saint, Saint George was also the patron saint of Yaroslavs great-grandson, Yury Dolgoruky, who - according to tradition - founded the city of Moscow shortly before his death in 1157. Yury Dolgoruky is thought to have honored his patron saint on his coins, yurys elder brother, Mstislav the Great, also used a seal featuring a horseman slaying a basilisk. A century later, Alexander Nevsky resumed this usage, several of his coins depict a horseman slaying a basilisk or a dragon, though the beast is not always visible. Alexanders motivation for reverting to Mstislavs emblem is disputed and it is possible that the image referred to his own victories over the Swedish and German crusaders in the Battle of the Neva and the Battle of the Ice. Alexanders great-grandson, Ivan II, was the first ruler of Moscow to employ as his emblem the standing warrior with a sword in his hand, ivans son Dmitry Donskoy chose to represent this warrior riding a horse with a spear in his hand. Historians traditionally connect Dmitrys symbol with his victory over the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo, at about the same time, a similar symbol, the Vytis, emerged as a state emblem in the rival Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The symbol of the horseman slaying the dragon passed down through the generations, from Dmitry to his son Vasily I, then to Vasily II, a coin which featured the image became known as kopeck, from kopyo, the Russian word for spear. Ivan III used the triumphant horseman as a emblem of Russia on his seal from 1479. This layout has become known as the coat of arms of the Russian Empire, at first the charging horseman was interpreted as showing the figure of the ruling tsar slaying an enemy intruding into the Russian lands. This attitude was expressed by the Muscovite statesman Grigory Kotoshikhin. On the title page of the 1663 Bible, the heraldic horseman appears to have the face of Tsar Alexis, the foreigners visiting Muscovy were the first to notice the emblems resemblance to the traditional iconography of Saint George and the Dragon. A learned Italian heraldist in Peters service, Count Santi, associated the horseman with St. George as the saint of the prince who founded Moscow. In 1730, Santi prepared the first detailed description of the emblem of Moscow. With several minor modifications, this emblem was officially confirmed December 20,1781, in 1883, it was decided to bring the colours of Moscows emblem in line with the three colours of the flag of Russia
8.
Nikita Mikhalkov
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Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers Union. Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family and his great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a princess of the House of Golitsyn. Mikhalkovs mother, poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, was the daughter of the avant-garde artist Pyotr Konchalovsky and granddaughter of another outstanding painter, Vasily Surikov. Nikitas older brother is the filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky, primarily known for his collaboration with Andrei Tarkovsky and his own Hollywood action films, such as Runaway Train, Mikhalkov studied acting at the childrens studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and later at the Shchukin School of the Vakhtangov Theatre. While still a student, he appeared in Georgi Daneliyas film I Step Through Moscow and he was soon on his way to becoming a star of the Soviet stage and cinema. While continuing to pursue his career, he entered VGIK, the state film school in Moscow. He directed his first short film in 1968, Im Coming Home, Mikhalkov established an international reputation with his second feature, A Slave of Love. Set in 1917, it followed the efforts of a crew to make a silent melodrama in a resort town while the Revolution rages around them. In 1978, while starring in his brothers epic film Siberiade, Mikhalkov made Five Evenings, a story about a couple separated by World War II. Mikhalkovs next film, Oblomov, with Oleg Tabakov in the role, is based on Ivan Goncharovs classic novel about a lazy young nobleman who refuses to leave his bed. Family Relations is a comedy about a woman in Moscow dealing with the tangled relationships of her relatives. Without Witness tracks a long conversation between a woman and her ex-husband when they are accidentally locked in a room. The film won the Prix FIPRESCI at the 13th Moscow International Film Festival, in the early 1980s, Mikhalkov resumed his acting career, appearing in Eldar Ryazanovs immensely popular Station for Two and A Cruel Romance. At that period, he also played Henry Baskerville in the Soviet screen version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and he also starred in many of his own films, including At Home Among Strangers, A Slave of Love, and An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano. Incorporating several short stories by Chekhov, Dark Eyes stars Marcello Mastroianni as an old man who tells a story of a romance he had when he was younger, a woman he has never been able to forget. The film was praised, and Mastroianni received the Best Actor Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. Mikhalkovs next film, Urga, set in the world of the Mongols. Mikhalkovs Anna, 6–18 documents his daughter Anna as she grows from childhood to maturity, Mikhalkovs most famous production to date, Burnt by the Sun, was steeped in the paranoid atmosphere of Joseph Stalins Great Terror
9.
Jack Nicholson
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John Joseph Jack Nicholson is an American actor and filmmaker, who has performed for over 60 years. Nicholson is known for playing a range of starring or supporting roles, including satirical comedy, romance and dark portrayals of antiheroes. In many of his films, he has played the eternal outsider, Nicholsons 12 Academy Award nominations make him the most nominated male actor in the Academys history. Nicholson has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, one for the drama One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and he also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the comedy-drama Terms of Endearment. Nicholson is one of three actors to win three Academy Awards. Nicholson is one of two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. He has won six Golden Globe Awards, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001, in 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institutes Life Achievement Award. He played Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubricks horror film The Shining, the Joker in Tim Burtons superhero film Batman, other films include the legal drama A Few Good Men, the Sean Penn-directed mystery film The Pledge, and the comedy-drama About Schmidt. Nicholson was born on April 22,1937, in Neptune City, New Jersey, Nicholsons mother was of Irish, English, and German descent. She married Italian-American showman Donald Furcillo in 1936, before realizing that he was already married, biographer Patrick McGilligan stated in his book Jacks Life that Latvian-born Eddie King, Junes manager, may have been Nicholsons biological father, rather than Furcillo. Other sources suggest June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was, in 1974, Time magazine researchers learned, and informed Nicholson, that his sister, June, was actually his mother, and his other sister, Lorraine, was really his aunt. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died, on finding out, Nicholson said it was a pretty dramatic event, but it wasnt what Id call traumatizing. I was pretty well psychologically formed. Nicholson grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey and he was raised in his mothers Roman Catholic religion. Before starting high school, his family moved to an apartment in Spring Lake, nick, as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School, where he was voted class clown by the Class of 1954. He was in every day for a whole school year. A theatre and an award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50-year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine and he served a tour of duty in the Air National Guard. Nicholson first came to Hollywood in 1954, when he was 17 and he took a job as an office worker for animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio
10.
Jeanne Moreau
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Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director. She won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for Seven Days, Seven Nights, the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for Viva Maria. and the César Award for Best Actress for The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea. She has also been the recipient of several awards, including a BAFTA Fellowship in 1996. Moreau made her debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing roles in films in 1949, impressing in a Fernandel vehicle Meutres. in 1950. She achieved prominence as the star of Elevator to the Gallows, directed by Louis Malle, most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continued to appear in films into her eighties. Moreau was born in Paris the daughter of Katherine, a dancer who performed at the Folies Bergère, and Anatole-Désiré Moreau, moreaus father was French, her mother was English, a native of Lancashire in England, and of part-Irish descent. Moreaus father was Catholic and her mother, originally a Protestant, when a young girl, the family moved south to Vichy, spending vacations at the ancestral village of Mazirat, a town of 30 houses in a valley in the Allier. It was wonderful there, Moreau said, every tombstone in the cemetery was for a Moreau. During the war, the family was split and Moreau lived with her mother in Paris, Moreau ultimately lost interest in school at age 16 and, after attending Jean Anouilhs Antigone, found her calling as an actor. She later studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and her parents separated permanently while Moreau was at the conservatory and her mother, after 24 difficult years in France, returned to England with Jeannes younger sister, Michelle. In 1947, Moreau made her debut at the Avignon Festival. She debuted at the Comédie-Française in Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country and, from the late 1950s, after appearing in several successful films, she began to work with the emerging generation of French film-makers. Elevator to the Gallows with first-time director Louis Malle was followed by Malles The Lovers, the latter film, controversial in its day, led the media to tag her The New Bardot. Largely thanks to those films, Moreau went on to work many of the best known New Wave. François Truffauts New Wave film Jules et Jim, her biggest success internationally, is centred on her starring role. In 1983 she was head of the jury at the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival, in 2005, she was awarded with the Stanislavsky Award at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Moreau has had success as a vocalist and she has released several albums and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall
11.
Meryl Streep
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Mary Louise Meryl Streep is an American actress and philanthropist. Nominated for 20 Academy Awards, Streep has more nominations than any actor or actress. Streep has also received 30 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight—more nominations, Streep made her professional stage debut in Trelawny of the Wells in 1975, and in 1976 received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made her debut in the 1977 television film The Deadliest Season. In 1978, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust and she went on to win Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer, and Best Actress for Sophies Choice and The Iron Lady. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2010 National Medal of Arts, in 2003, the government of France made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2017, Streep was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. Mary Louise Streep was born on June 22,1949, in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary Wolf Wilkinson, a commercial artist and art editor, the eldest child, she has two younger brothers, Dana David and Harry William III. Streeps father Harry was of German and Swiss ancestry and her fathers lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor. Another line of her fathers family was from Giswil, Switzerland and her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streeps maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and were descended from 17th-century immigrants from England and her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle in Rhode Island. Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, Streeps maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, the namesake of Streeps second daughter, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy, Ireland. Streeps mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to Dame Judi Dench, strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from a young age. Streep has said, She was a mentor because she said to me, Meryl and she was saying, You can do whatever you put your mind to. If youre lazy, youre not going to get it done, but if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. Although Streep was naturally more introverted than her mother, at times when she later needed an injection of confidence in adulthood, she would consult her mother, asking her for advice. Streep was raised as a Presbyterian in Basking Ridge, New Jersey and attended Cedar Hill Elementary School and the Oak Street School, in her Junior High debut, she starred as Lousie Heller in the play The Family Upstairs. In 1963 the family moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School
12.
Harvey Keitel
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Harvey Keitel is an American actor and producer. Along with actors Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn, he is the current co-president of the Actors Studio, Keitel was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the son of Miriam and Harry Keitel, Jewish immigrants from Romania and Poland, respectively. His parents owned and ran a luncheonette and his also worked as a hat maker. Keitel grew up in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, with his sister, Renee and he attended Abraham Lincoln High School. At the age of sixteen, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps, after his return to the United States, he was a court reporter for several years and was able to support himself before beginning his acting career. Keitel studied under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg and at the HB Studio, eventually landing roles in some Off-Broadway productions. During this time, Keitel auditioned for filmmaker Martin Scorsese and gained a role as J. R. in Scorseses first feature film. Since then, Scorsese and Keitel have worked together on several projects, Keitel had the starring role in Scorseses Mean Streets, which also proved to be Robert De Niros breakthrough film. In 1978, Keitel starred in the directorial debuts of Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, cast as Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now, Keitel was involved with the first week of principal photography in the Philippines. Coppola was not happy with Keitels take on Willard, stating that the found it difficult to play him a passive onlooker. After viewing the first weeks footage, Coppola replaced Keitel with a casting session favorite, Keitel drifted into obscurity through most of the 1980s. He continued to do work on stage and screen, but usually in the stereotypical role of a thug. Keitel played Judas in Martin Scorseses controversial The Last Temptation of Christ and co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes, the following year, Keitel played another mobster in the Whoopi Goldberg-starring comedy Sister Act. Keitel starred in Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs in 1992, where his performance as Mr. White took his career to a different level, since then, Keitel has chosen his roles with care, seeking to change his image and show a broader acting range. One of those roles was the character in Bad Lieutenant, about a self-loathing. He co-starred in the movie The Piano in 1993, and played an efficient clean-up expert, Keitel starred as a police detective in Spike Lees Clockers. In 1999, Keitel was replaced by Sydney Pollack on the set of Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut, due to shooting conflicts, Keitel also re-teamed with Jane Campion for Holy Smoke. He also appeared in the Steinlager Pure commercials in New Zealand in 2007, unlike many American male actors, Keitel has appeared nude in several films, including full frontal nudity in Bad Lieutenant and The Piano
13.
Fanny Ardant
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Fanny Marguerite Judith Ardant is a French actress. She has appeared in more than eighty motion pictures since 1976, Ardant won the César Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her performance in Pédale douce. Ardant was born in Saumur Maine-et-Loire, France, to a military attaché father and she grew up in Monaco until age 17 when she moved to Aix-en-Provence to study at the Institut détudes politiques dAix-en-Provence. In her early twenties her interest turned to acting and in 1974 she made her first appearance on stage, by the early 1980s she was a major motion picture star, gaining international recognition for her role opposite Gérard Depardieu in La Femme dà côté. The film, directed by François Truffaut, brought Ardant her first César Award nomination for best actress in 1982, eventually she became Truffauts companion, giving birth to their daughter, Joséphine Truffaut, on 28 September 1983. Initially, her youthful beauty brought popularity but over time her sophistication and she proved her versatility, playing a comedic role in Pédale douce for which she won the 1997 César Award for Best Actress. Fluent in English and Italian, Ardant has starred in several Hollywood and her most recent English-language film was the Franco Zeffirelli production Callas Forever, in which she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas. It opened the 14th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on 9 January 2003, in 2003, Ardant received the Stanislavsky Award at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival. In 2009, she became a director and screenwriter, with Cendres et sang, in 2010, she directed her first-ever short feature called Absent Chimeras in which she also stars. She made this film in order to raise public awareness to the plight of Romani people in Europe. In 2013, she made an appearance as herself in The Great Beauty. She once expressed admiration for Renato Curcio, ex leader of the militant Red Brigades and she later discovered that it would be difficult to attend a film festival in Venice, as her declaration had created much scandal in Italy. The Governor of Veneto said that he would prefer that Ardant not visit his region and she then pleaded for forgiveness from victims of terrorism. Anarchisme et surréalisme, Mémoire de lI. E. P, Fanny Ardant at the Internet Movie Database Fanny Ardant at AllMovie Fanny Ardant at AlloCiné
14.
Daniel Olbrychski
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Olbrychski was born in Łowicz, Poland. He attended Gimnazjum i Liceum im, in 1971 he won the award for Best Actor at the 7th Moscow International Film Festival for his role in The Birch Wood. He played one of the roles in Volker Schlöndorffs film The Tin Drum based on Günter Grasss novel Die Blechtrommel. He also appeared in one of the ten films in Krzysztof Kieślowskis Dekalog and had a small role in the film adaptation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In 1986 Olbrychski received the French Legion of Honor, in addition to acting, Olbrychski has been well known for his abilities as an athlete. A keen horse-rider, a boxer and very able with the sabre and he is the father of two sons, Rafał Olbrychski by Monika Dzienisiewicz-Olbrychska, and Viktor by German actress Barbara Sukowa. He also has a daughter named Weronika by Zuzanna Łapicka-Olbrychska, daughter of Andrzej Łapicki and he was selected to be on the jury for the Cinéfondation and short films sections of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. pl
15.
Oleg Yankovsky
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Oleg Ivanovich Yankovsky was a Soviet/Russian actor who has excelled in psychologically sophisticated roles of modern intellectuals. In 1991, he became, together with Alla Pugacheva, the last person to be named a Peoples Artist of the USSR, during his remarkably prolific screen career, Yankovsky appeared in many film adaptations of Russian classics, notably My Sweet and Tender Beast and The Kreutzer Sonata. A leading actor of Mark Zakharovs Lenkom Theatre since 1975, he starred in the TV versions of the productions, An Ordinary Miracle. For his role in Roman Balayans Flights in Dreams and Reality Yankovsky was awarded the USSR State Prize and he has been better known abroad for his parts in Tarkovskys movies The Mirror and Nostalghia. In 1991 he was the President of the Jury at the 17th Moscow International Film Festival, starting in 1993, Yankovsky ran the Kinotavr Film Festival in Sochi. He continued to receive awards for his work with several Nika Awards from the Russian Film Academy for his directorial debut Come Look At Me and he appeared as Count Pahlen in Poor Poor Paul and as Komarovsky in a TV adaptation of Doctor Zhivago, directed by Oleg Menshikov. The last film Yankovsky appeared in was Tsar, which was released in 2009 and demonstrated at the Cannes Film Festival on the 17th of May 2009, Yankovsky played the sophisticated role of Metropolitan Philip in his last film. A civil funeral took place at Lenkom theater and his burial was held on May 22,2009, at Novodevichy Cemetery in presence of his close relatives only. com Biography of Oleg Yankovsky
16.
Isabelle Huppert
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Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in more than 100 films and television productions since her debut in 1971. She is the most nominated actress for the César Award, with 16 nominations and she twice won the César Award for Best Actress, for La Cérémonie and for Elle. Huppert was made Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite in 1994 and was promoted to Officier in 2005 and she was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1999 and was promoted to Officer in 2009. Hupperts first César nomination was for the 1975 film Aloïse, in 1978, she won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for The Lacemaker. Her other films in France include Loulou, La Séparation,8 Women, Gabrielle, Amour, among international films most prolific actresses, Huppert has worked in Italy, Russia, Central Europe, and on the Asian continent. Her English-language films include, Heavens Gate, I Heart Huckabees, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, and Louder Than Bombs. In 2016, Huppert garnered international acclaim for her work in Elle, for which she won a Golden Globe Award, an Independent Spirit Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won Best Actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle, Huppert is the most nominated actress for the Molière Award, with 7 nominations. She made her London stage debut in the role of the play Mary Stuart in 1996. She returned to the New York stage in 2009 to perform in Heiner Müllers Quartett, Huppert was born in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the daughter of Annick, an English teacher, and Raymond Huppert, a safe manufacturer. She has a brother and three sisters, including filmmaker Caroline Huppert and her father was Jewish, his family is from Prešov and Alsace-Lorraine. Huppert was raised in her mothers Catholic faith, Huppert was encouraged by her mother to begin acting at a young age, and became a teenage star in Paris. She later attended Versailles Conservatoire, where she won a prize for her acting and she is also an alumna of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris, CNSAD. Huppert made her debut in 1971 with Le Prussien. Her later appearance in the controversial Les Valseuses made her increasingly recognized by the public and her international breakthrough came with La Dentelliere, for which she won a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. In 1994, Huppert collaborated with American director Hal Hartley on Amateur and she also appeared in Michael Hanekes The Piano Teacher, which is based on a novel of the same name by Austrian author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004, Elfriede Jelinek. In this film, she played a teacher named Erika Kohut. Regarded as one of her most impressive turns, her performance netted the 2001 Best Actress prize in Cannes, in 2004, she starred in Christophe Honorés Ma Mère as Hélène with Louis Garrel
17.
Helen Mirren
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Dame Helen Lydia Mirren DBE is an English actor. The Audience was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen, Tingle, Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, The Last Station, Hitchcock, and The Hundred-Foot Journey. She played Victoria Winslow in the action-comedy films Red and Red 2, in 2003, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Services to the Performing Arts. In 2013, Mirren was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and she was born Helen Lydia Mironoff at Queen Charlottes and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, west London, the daughter of Kathleen Kitty Alexandrina Eva Matilda and Vasily Petrovich Mironoff. Her mother was English and her father was Russian, originally from Kuryanovo, Mirrens paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating a deal in Britain when he. The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family and his son, Helen Mirrens father, anglicised the family name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, Mirrens mother was a working-class Londoner from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose own father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been very anti-monarchist, Mirren was the second of three children, she was born three years after her older sister, Katherine, and also had a younger brother, Peter Basil. Mirren was brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, aged eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was playing Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, as a result of her work for the National Youth Theatre, Mirren was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester, in 1970, the director/producer John Goldschmidt made a documentary film, Doing Her Own Thing, about Mirren during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK and she then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975. According to Beauman, there were no repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC. Her performance earned her the London critics Plays & Players Best Actress award, beginning in November 1975, Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers new farce The Bed Before Yesterday. In 1981, she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friels Faith Healer, – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983. On 15 February 2013, at the West Ends Gielgud Theatre she began a turn as Elizabeth II in the World Premiere of Peter Morgans The Audience, the show was directed by Stephen Daldry. In April she was named best actress at the Olivier Awards for her role, a further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country
18.
Catherine Deneuve
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Catherine Deneuve is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model and producer. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof, mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel, Francois Truffaut, in 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, Frances national symbol of liberty. A 14-time César Award nominee, she won for her performances in Truffauts The Last Metro and she is also noted for her support for a variety of liberal causes. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for Belle de Jour, and she also won the 1998 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for Place Vendôme. Other films include Scene of the Crime, My Favourite Season,8 Women and her English-language films include The April Fools, Hustle, The Hunger and Dancer in the Dark. In 2015, she starred in The Brand New Testament and Standing Tall, Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, France, the daughter of French stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot. Deneuve was her mothers name, which she chose for her stage name. Her work for Buñuel would be her most famous, further prominent films from this early time in her career included Jean-Paul Rappeneaus A Matter of Resistance, and Demys musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Her starring roles at the time were featured in films as A Slightly Pregnant Man with Marcello Mastroianni. She made her film as a producer in 1988, Drôle dendroit pour une rencontre. In 1997, Deneuve was the protagonist in the video for the song NOubliez Jamais sung by Joe Cocker. In 1998 she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in Place Vendôme. In the late 1990s, Deneuve continued to appear in a number of films such as 1999s five films Est-Ouest, Le temps retrouvé, Pola X, Belle maman. In 2000, Deneuves part in Lars von Triers musical drama Dancer in the Dark alongside Icelandic singer Björk was subject to critical scrutiny. The film was selected for the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival and she made another foray into Hollywood the following year, starring in The Musketeer for Peter Hyams. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Women. In 2005, Deneuve published her diary A lombre de moi-meme, in it she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine and she also provided the voice role of Marjane Satrapis mother in Satrapis animated autobiographical film Persepolis, based on the graphic novel of the same name. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël, during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival with Ali Naderzad, Deneuve was asked which was her own favorite film
19.
Brazilians
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A Brazilian can also be a person born abroad to a Brazilian father or a Brazilian mother or a person who acquired Brazilian citizenship. According to the Constitution of Brazil, a Brazilian citizen is, Anyone born in Brazil, according to the Constitution, all people who hold Brazilian citizenship are equal, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion. A foreigner can apply for Brazilian citizenship after living for 4 uninterrupted years in Brazil, a native person from an official Portuguese language country can request the Brazilian nationality after only 1 uninterrupted year living in Brazil. Brazilians are mostly descendants of colonial settlers, post-colonial immigrant groups, African slaves. The three principal groups were Native Brazilians, European colonizers and African labor, Brazil was inhabited by an estimated 2.4 million Amerindians before the first settlers arrived in the 16th century. The European diseases spread quickly along the trade routes. The country was discovered by Portugal in 1500 and received about 724,000 Portuguese colonizers, mostly males. But other sources claim that the given numbers of total entrances were clearly surpassed. The Jesuits asked the Portuguese Crown to ship orphaned women under royal wardship for marriage with the settlers, daughters of noblemen who died overseas administrating captaincies in the colonies or in battle for the king would marry settlers of higher rank. Bahias port in the Northeast received one of the first groups of orphans in 1551, Portugal remained the only significant, but not an exclusive source of European immigration to Brazil until the early 19th century. These other people came from different nationalities - but the by far most mentioned are the Dutch and these Jews founded the first Synagogue in the Americas, named Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue in the city of Recife. It is estimated more than 20,000 Dutch entered Brazil, however. The remaining families mostly fled to parts of the interior of Northeastern Brazil or changed their names to Portuguese ones. The proven excess of Y-chromosomes of the haplogroup 2 in northeasterners probably results from the miscegenation of Dutch settlers with the local population. The Jews who mostly left Brazil took off to what was then named New Amsterdam, today New York City, and founded the oldest Jewish congregation in the USA, the Congregation Shearith Israel. The ones who stayed, converted into Christianity and were known as New Christians or Marranos. They entered Brazil fleeing from the Inquisition or were deported by the Kingdom of Portugal and also Spain, latter being known as Degredados and this also included Romani People from the Iberian Peninsula, what partially explains the curiously high numbers for a western country. Brazil has the second largest Gypsy population in the Americas after the US, having also received Roma people from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Baltic countries during the 20th century
20.
Jean-Marc Barr
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Jean-Marc Barr is a French American film actor and director. Barr was born to a French mother and an American father working in the US Armed Forces and he is fluent in both French and English. Barr was born in West Germany where his father was stationed and his family moved to France in 1968, then to California in 1974. Barrs parents wished him to join the forces but he was unwilling to follow in his fathers footsteps. He studied philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Paris Conservatoire and he moved to London to pursue an education in drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Barr began working in theatre in France in 1986, after finding work in television, and film, he was cast in the tremendously successful The Big Blue. Luc Besson cast him in the role of French diver Jacques Mayol, alongside Rosanna Arquette, the Big Blue was the most financially successful film in France in the 1980s. In 1991, he starred in Danish director Lars von Triers Europa and he went on to appear in von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay, The Boss of It All and Nymphomaniac. In 2005 he starred in the French film Crustacés et Coquillages, in 1999 he starred in the French cinéma du corps/cinema of the body drama film, Dont Let Me Die on a Sunday, directed by Didier Le Pêcheur. His collaboration with von Trier put him on track to start directing his own work and he debuted in 1999 as a director, screenwriter and producer with the intimate love story Lovers. The film became the first part of a trilogy, the films that followed were the drama Too Much Flesh and the comedy Being Light, which he co-directed with Pascal Arnold. Barr and Pascal also directed the 2006 film Chacun sa nuit and discovered at that time Lizzie Brocher, Arthur Dupont, then an other one in 2012, Sexual Chronicles of a French Family. In 1997 he appeared in The Scarlet Tunic, produced by Zigi Kamasa and he appeared as Hugo in The Red Siren in 2002 and played divorce lawyer Maitre Bertram in the 2003 Merchant Ivory film le Divorce. He appeared as the character in the video for Blurs 1995 single. He played author Jack Kerouac in the 2013 film adaptation of the Beat Generation autobiographical novel Big Sur, Jean-Marc Barr at the Internet Movie Database Jean-Marc Barr at AllMovie Jean-Marc Barr discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs Biography at zoom-cinema. fr Photos Jean-Marc Barr, Berlin 2001
21.
Bulgarians
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Bulgarians are a South Slavic ethnic group who are native to Bulgaria and its neighboring regions. Bulgarian citizenship shall further be acquirable through naturalization, the population of Bulgaria descend from peoples with different origins and numbers. They became assimilated by the Slavic settlers in the First Bulgarian Empire, from the indigenous Thracian people certain cultural and ethnic elements were taken. Other pre-Slavic Indo-European peoples, including Dacians, Celts, Goths, Romans, Greeks, the Thracian language has been described as a southern Baltic language. Some pre-Slavic linguistic and cultural traces might have preserved in modern Bulgarians. Medieval historians claimed that the Triballi are the largest tribe and that subsequently changed their name to Bulgarians or Serbs. Others claimed that the Paeonians are Bulgarians, others claimed that the Moesi, according to archeological evidence from the late periods of Roman rule, the Romans did not decrease the number of Thracians significantly in major cities. The latter gradually inflicting total linguistic replacement of Thracian if the Thracians had not already been Romanized or Hellenized and they continued coming to the Balkans in many waves, but also leaving, most notably Justinian II settled as many as 30,000 Slavs from Thrace in Asia Minor. The Byzantines grouped the numerous Slavic tribes into two groups, the Sklavenoi and Antes, some Bulgarian scholars suggest that the Antes became one of the ancestors of the modern Bulgarians. The control of the Bulgars in the west was indirect and in the hands of the Slavic chiefs, the Bulgars are first mentioned in the 4th century in the vicinity of the North Caucasian steppe. However, any connection between the Bulgars and postulated Asian counterparts rest on little more than speculative and contorted etymologies. The Bulgars are not thought to have numerous, becoming a ruling elite in the areas they controlled. Their archeological evidence is concentrated in northeast Bulgaria and in Macedonia, mixed Bulgar-Slavic settlements emerged according to archeological evidence. Omurtag was the last ruler with a Turkic name and during the reign of Boris the Slavonic language reached an official level, a substantional number of loan words of the Bulgar language remained in the Medieval Bulgarian Slavic language and fewer survived in the modern. During the Early Byzantine Era, the Roman provincials in Scythia Minor and Moesia Secunda were already engaged in economic, the major port towns in Pontic Bulgaria remained Byzantine Greek in their outlook. The establishment of a new state molded the various Slav, Bulgar, in different periods to the ethnogenesis of the local population contributed also different Indo-European and Turkic people, who settled or lived on the Balkans. The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681, after the adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 864 it became one of the cultural centres of Slavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of the Cyrillic script in its capital Preslav at the eve of the 10th century
22.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
23.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
24.
Sergei Bondarchuk
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Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk was a Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor. Born in Belozerka, in the Kherson Governorate of the Ukrainian SSR, Sergei Bondarchuk spent his childhood in the cities of Yeysk and Taganrog and his first performance as an actor was onstage of the Taganrog Theatre in 1937. He continued studies in the Rostov-on-Don theater school, after his studies, he was conscripted into the Red Army against Nazi Germany and was discharged in 1946. At the age of 32, he became the youngest Soviet actor ever to receive the top dignity of Peoples Artist of the USSR, in 1955, he starred with his future wife Irina Skobtseva in Othello. In 1959 he made his debut with Destiny of a Man. The year after his victory, in 1969, he starred as Ivan Martik with Yul Brynner and Orson Welles in the Yugoslav epic Battle of Neretva and his first English language film was 1970s Waterloo, produced by Dino De Laurentiis. In Europe the critics called it remarkable for the battle scenes. However, it failed at the box office, to prevent running into hurdles with the Soviet government, he joined the Communist Party in 1970. In 1973 he was the President of the Jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival, in 1975 he directed They Fought for Their Country, which was entered into the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. In 1982 came Red Bells, based on John Reeds Ten Days that Shook the World and his 1986 film, Boris Godunov, was also screened at Cannes that year. Bondarchuks last feature film, and his second in English was an epic TV version of Sholokhovs And Quiet Flows the Don and he first married Inna Makarova, mother to his elder daughter, Natalya Bondarchuk. Daughter Natalya is remembered for her role in Andrei Tarkovskys 1972 film Solaris and he met his second wife Irina Skobtseva when both were appearing in Othello and they married in 1959. They had two children, actress Elena Bondarchuk and a son Fyodor, a popular Russian film actor and director best known for his box-office hit The 9th Company, Bondarchuk died 20th October 1994 aged 74 of a heart attack. He is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow and he was survived by his children and both wives. In June 2007, his ex-wife Inna Makarova unveiled a statue of Bondarchuk in his native Yeysk
25.
The Naked Island
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The Naked Island is a black-and-white film from 1960, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film is notable for having almost no spoken dialogue, the film depicts a small family, a husband and wife and two sons, struggling to get by on a tiny island in the Seto Inland Sea, over the course of a year. They are the only occupants, and survive by farming. They must repeatedly carry the water for their plants and themselves in a row boat from a neighboring island, when the boys catch a large fish, the family travels to Onomichi by ferry, where they sell it to a fishmonger, then eat at a modern restaurant. While the parents are away from the island, the older son falls ill, the desperate father runs to find a doctor to come to treat his son, but when they arrive, the boy is already dead. After the boys funeral, which is attended by his classmates from his school on the neighboring island, director and scriptwriter Kaneto Shindo decided to make this film because he wanted to make a film without any dialogue. The independent production company Kindai Eiga Kyokai was close to bankruptcy at the time film was made. The films financial success saved the company, the lead actor Taiji Tonoyama was suffering from severe liver disease due to alcohol dependence, but recovered his health because there was no alcohol available near the filming location. These events were dramatized in Shindos biopic about Tonoyama, By Player. Shindo deliberately made the actors carry heavily-loaded buckets of water so that the yokes they were using would be seen to bend, the island location in the film is an uninhabited island called Sukune off the coast of a larger island called Sagishima, part of Mihara, Hiroshima. In 1961, the won the Grand Prix at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival. In 1963, the film was nominated for Best Film from any Source at the 16th British Academy Film Awards, the Naked Island at the Internet Movie Database The Naked Island at AllMovie
26.
Kaneto Shindo
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Kaneto Shindo was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and author. He directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238 and his best known films as a director include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note. His scripts were filmed by such directors as Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Fumio Kamei, Shindo was born in Hiroshima Prefecture, and he made several films about Hiroshima and the atomic bomb. Like his early mentor Kenji Mizoguchi, many of his films feature strong female characters and he was a pioneer of independent film production in Japan, founding a company called Kindai Eiga Kyokai. He continued working as a scriptwriter, director and author until his death at the age of 100, Shindo was born in 1912 in the Saeki District of Hiroshima Prefecture. He was the youngest of four children and his family were wealthy landowners, but his father went bankrupt and lost all his land after acting as a loan guarantor. His older brother and two went to find work, and he and his mother and father lived in a storehouse. His mother became a labourer and then died during his early childhood. His older brother was good at judo and became a policeman, one of his sisters became a nurse and would go on to work caring for atom bomb victims. The other sister married a Japanese-American and went to live in the USA, in 1933, Shindo, then living with his brother in Onomichi, was inspired by a film called Bangaku No Isshō to want to start a career in films. He saved money by working in a shop and in 1934, with a letter of introduction from his brother to a policeman in Kyoto. After a long wait he was able to get a job in the developing department of Shinkō Kinema. He was one of workers in the developing department. At this time he learned that films were based on scripts because old scripts were used as toilet paper and he would take the scripts home to study them. His job involved drying 200-foot lengths of film on a roller three metres long and two high, and he learned the relationship between the pieces of film he was drying and the scripts he read. When Shinkō Kinema moved from Kyoto to Tokyo in November 1935, many of the staff, the brother of the policeman who had helped Shindo get the job in Shinkō Kinema was one of them. He asked Shindo to take his place, and Shindo got a job in Shinko Kinemas art department run by Hiroshi Mizutani. Shindo discovered that many people wanted to become film directors, including Mizutani
27.
Grigory Chukhray
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Grigory Naumovich Chukhray was a prominent Soviet film director and screenwriter, and a Peoples Artist of the USSR. He was the father of the Russian film director Pavel Chukhrai, grigory Chukhrai was born in Melitopol to Red Army soldiers Naum Zinovievich Rubanov and Claudia Petrovna Chuchrai. His parents divorced when he was three years old and he was raised by a stepfather, Pavel Antonovich Litvinenko, the head of kolkhoz. His mother Claudia Chuchrai took a part in the collectivization and dekulakization of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1939 he was drafted to the army, a decorated veteran of World War II, Chukhrais wartime experiences profoundly affected him and the majority of his films. He served in the 229th separate communications battalion of the 134th Infantry Division and he fought at the Southern, Stalingrad and Don Fronts. From 1943 on, he served in troops at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts. In 1944 he joined the Communist Party, at wars end, he studied filmmaking at VGIK, the course led by Sergei Yutkevich and Mikhail Romm, and then developed his craft as a directors assistant at the Kiev Film Studio. In 1959 Chukhrai directed and co-wrote Ballad of a Soldier, a story of love and the tragedy of war, the film received great acclaim at home, earning the prestigious Lenin Prize. It was heralded internationally for both its story and cinematic technique, at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival it was awarded a special jury prize for high humanism and outstanding quality. Ballad of a Soldier premiered in the United States in 1960 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the film won the Festivals Golden Gate Award, for Best Picture and for Best Director for Grigori Chukhrai. Playing worldwide, the year, it earned the BAFTA Award for Best Film. Grigori Chukhrai and script co-writer Valentin Yezhov were also nominated for the 1961 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, Chukhrais next film Clear Skies was released in 1961. It told the story of a Soviet pilot who had survived Nazi imprisonment during the war and it was one of the first Soviet films to deal with some of the repressive practices under the Soviet leadership of Joseph Stalin. It won the Grand Prix at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival, two years later Chukhrai served as the President of the Jury at the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival. Between 1966 and 1971 Chukhrai headed the directors courses at VGIK and he also served as a member of the State Committee for Cinematography between 1964 and 1991. In 1984 Chukhrai directed his final Soviet film, together with Yuri Shvyryov, in 1992—1993 he and Rolf Schübel co-directed Todfeinde. Vom Sterben und Überleben in Stalingrad, a joined Russian-Germany documentary in two parts about the Battle of Stalingrad, in this film Chukhrai as well as other Russian and German survivors told about their experiences during the battle
28.
Federico Fellini
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Federico Fellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Known for his style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. His films have ranked, in such as Cahiers du cinéma and Sight & Sound. Sight & Sound lists his 1963 film 8½ as the 10th greatest film of all time, in 1993, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Fellini was born on 20 January 1920, to parents in Rimini. His father, Urbano Fellini, born to a family of Romagnol peasants and small landholders from Gambettola and his mother, Ida Barbiani, came from a bourgeiois Catholic family of Roman merchants. Despite her familys vehement disapproval, she had eloped with Urbano in 1917 to live at his parents home in Gambettola, a civil marriage followed in 1918 with the religious ceremony held at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome a year later. The couple settled in Rimini where Urbano became a traveling salesman, Fellini had two siblings, Riccardo, a documentary director for RAI Television, and Maria Maddalena. In 1924, Fellini started primary school in a run by the nuns of San Vincenzo in Rimini. In 1926, he discovered the world of Grand Guignol, the circus with Pierino the Clown, Guido Brignone’s Maciste all’Inferno, the first film he saw, would mark him in ways linked to Dante and the cinema throughout his entire career. Enrolled at the Ginnasio Giulio Cesare in 1929, he made friends with Luigi ‘Titta’ Benzi, in Mussolini’s Italy, Fellini and Riccardo became members of the Avanguardista, the compulsory Fascist youth group for males. He visited Rome with his parents for the first time in 1933, the sea creature found on the beach at the end of La Dolce Vita has its basis in a giant fish marooned on a Rimini beach during a storm in 1934. To say that my films are autobiographical is an overly facile liquidation and it seems to me that I have invented almost everything, childhood, character, nostalgias, dreams, memories, for the pleasure of being able to recount them. In 1937, Fellini opened Febo, a shop in Rimini. with the painter Demos Bonini. His first humorous article appeared in the Postcards to Our Readers section of Milan’s Domenica del Corriere, deciding on a career as a caricaturist and gag writer, Fellini travelled to Florence in 1938, where he published his first cartoon in the weekly 420. According to a biographer, Fellini found school exasperating and, in one year, had 67 absences, failing his military culture exam, he graduated from high school in July 1938 after doubling the exam. In September 1939, he enrolled in law school at the University of Rome to please his parents, biographer Hollis Alpert reports that there is no record of his ever having attended a class. Installed in a family pensione, he met lifelong friend
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War and Peace (film series)
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War and Peace is a 1966-67 Soviet war drama film written and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and a film adaptation of Leo Tolstoys 1869 novel War and Peace. The picture was produced by the Mosfilm studios between 1961 and 1967, with support from the Soviet authorities. At a cost of 8,291,712 Soviet ruble – equal to 9,213,013 USD in 1967 rates, or $67 million in 2011, upon its release, it became a success with the audiences, selling approximately 135 million tickets in its native country. War and Peace also won the Grand Prix in the Moscow International Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in St. Petersburg of 1805, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a rich nobleman, is introduced to high society. His friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, joins the Imperial Russian Army as aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Kutuzov in the War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon. As Pierres father recognizes him, he attracts the attention of Hélène Kuragin and marries her, Bolkonsky takes part in the failed campaign in Austria, where he witnesses the Battle of Schöngrabern and the Battle of Austerlitz. The prince is badly wounded and is mistaken for dead, Bolkonsky returns to his home and meets Natasha Rostova, the young daughter of a count. In the end of 1809, Natasha attends her first ball, Andrei falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but his father demands they wait. The prince travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him, but she then meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets and abandons her plans to elope with Anatol, Bolkonsky hears of this and declares their betrothal is over. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her, in 1812, Napoleons Army invades Russia. Kutuzov asks Bolkonsky to join him as an officer, yet the prince requests a command in the field. Pierre sets out to watch the confrontation between the armies. During the Battle of Borodino, he volunteers to assist in an artillery battery, bolkonskys unit waits in the reserve, but he is hit by a shell. Both Anatol and Bolkonsky suffer severe wounds, the French Army is victorious and advances on Moscow. As Moscow is set ablaze by the retreating Russians, the Rostovs flee their estate, taking wounded soldiers with them, Pierre, dressed as a peasant, tries to assassinate Napoleon but is taken prisoner. As the French are forced to retreat, he is marched for months with the Grande Armée, the French are defeated by Kutuzov in the Battle of Krasnoi. Andrei is recognized and is brought to his estate and he forgives Natasha on his deathbed
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Sergei Gerasimov (film director)
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Sergei Appolinarievich Gerasimov was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. The oldest film school in the world, the VGIK, bears his name, Gerasimov started his film industry career as an actor in 1924. At first he appeared in Kozintsev and Trauberg films, such as The Overcoat, later, he was commissioned to produce screen versions of the literary classics of socialist realism. His epic screenings of Alexander Fadeyevs The Young Guard and Mikhail Sholokhovs And Quiet Flows the Don were extolled by the authorities as exemplary, during several decades of their teaching in the VGIK Gerasimov and his wife Tamara Makarova prepared many generations of Russian actors. In his last film Gerasimov played Leo Tolstoy, while Makarova was cast as Tolstoys wife, Gerasimov is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery of Moscow. Gerasimov was the President of the Jury at the 1959,1965,1969 and he was a member of the jury in 1961 and 1971. In 1967 his film The Journalist won the Grand Prix at the 1967 festival
