The teaser :)

Picturesque clouds


Cosy houses


Hot happy dogs


Freedom


Seen, experienced, enjoyed and photographed by Lana:)

A bit about Mylene Farmer, but generally about me a bit lost...

Hello, just to inform that I am alive (great!), having sort of a personal crisis (oops), planning to go to Saint-Petersburg for business trip in August (hurray!), searching for another apartment for rent (finally). Work and summer heat in Moscow. Having unpredictable and occasionally terribly hot summer this year, mixture of serious heat and tropical rains.

Mylene Farmer and Manu Chao in Moscow


Also saw the Mylene Farmer show – in Moscow, and that was really good. Difficult to fully estimate from half a kilometer distance of my far away balcony, as I went there only by curiosity, influenced by rather active promotion and honestly, with some prejudice. So was not ready to invest in better seats. But found myself quite interested in the stuff, so started to read and translate, interviews and texts – and now can tell that found lots of interesting there. References to serious French poetry, for example – some of her texts are made of quotations from “classics”. Or play words – one thing is written, another one might be heard, but as part of modern language might be interpreted in the third way. Much provocation as well, in the image and in the text again – but it is very well explained and justified from the “show” and “business” sides, and also I do believe that it might be the vision of hers. Even if some topics are not totally politically correct nor pleasant, nor traditional, nor cheerful… I was not going to write an article about that, but just to tell that I found her work, her whole “project” - meaningful and honest. By the way, she writes the texts of all her songs, with extremely rare exception, once or twice of not-her texts. And also she is a genius, whether conscious or not, of promotion and business part of the show. Again, I might assume now, how that may be connected with her own personality – the wall of mystery around her, which is supposed to be a great promotional move, sure might be explained by lack of desire to spread information about herself. But as she is an artiste, on the first place for us, I would call her sincere and brave, honest and bold. And I am glad that made such a discovery about Mlle Farmer. She is cool, so no more prejudice :)

Part of the queue

Before the show and my distance


In Russian, but quite a nice article about Mylene Farmer and her show
One more article, with pictures .

Ciao now, in fact – lots of work at the moment… See you later))

Photo: Mylene Farmer (c)

July 4th, picnic and cinema

Happy 4th of July, the summary.

The picnic organized by The American Chamber of Commerce in Russia - in the historic Kuskovo Estate. Promoted as the largest Independence Day celebration outside the United States. Live music and food.

With Tatyana, my colleague.


A display of antique cars.


That was a cloudy day, and it rains till now, with grey, almost autumn rain.


A bit of sport, shooting bows etc.



My fans and me. I was actually more falling down than jumping.


B2 band, pronounced "Be-dva", rocking on stage. Cool, good Russian rock.



Couple of their songs, if interested. The first is part of the “Brother” (“Brat”) movie soundtrack. The direct links to Youtube will be opened here, not in a new window. No one writes to the colonel and Silver

Some information about the Kuskovo estate in English here

Here you can click the photos (on the left) for lovely views of interiors and the park - right here.

When walking with a camera I do collect all sort of bears, as pictures. In one of previous posts I was making some explanation about the “Bears and Michaels” connections, in Russian language. Well, there is some more explanation about why I do care about bears, but won`t bore you with it now (briefly, there are more connections with some other names, important for me). These ones are made of flowers.


There was also a firework, but I was already out of there - had some “Cinema by night” adventure. The “Audrey Tautou night” in one of the oldest cinema-theatres in Moscow, “Khudozhestvenny” (in English just brief “Artistic”). The following is their website, and if you scroll down the text in Russian – there is a picture of the building.

The "night" looked like three films with this French actress. From 23:00 till almost 7 in the morning, which turned out to be survivable. There were coffee-breaks between the movies. Actually there were several hundreds of people like me, not going to sleep that night. Couldn`t even find seats so had to seat in the director`s private lodge (the dark side of free admission again, hehe).

Deep night, some fresh air during the coffe-break.


Early morning, time to clean streets and go home. Metro is already working.

Moscow Film Festival, French cinema

The 31st Moscow International Film Festival has been here and finished now. Big event with a lot of publicity and support, pretending to be serious and prestigious. Maybe, maybe not. As part of the audience I might mention that of course there was a typical for this event grandiose hassle with tickets. Nothing online, nothing in advance, one ticket-office available.

"All tickets are sold" (on the screens) -

Anyway, what`s seen:

1. “Je te mangerais”. Literally “I will eat you”, but international film name is “You will be mine”. Participated in the Perspectives competition, for young film creators. By French film director Sophie Laloy, who was presenting the movie herself in Moscow. Modern movie, done in a modern real manner. About a girl who moved to Lyon to study piano in the conservatory while sharing apartment with a girl, a friend of long time ago. How and why people may start to dominate, being jealous or unhealthily in love, changing other`s lives, and whether it is possible to resist that without being changed. Suspense holds you till the end and as a spectator you are still responsible for constructing the final end of the story, which is fine for me. Logical, pure, with secret energy. Was shown with double subtitles, English and Russian. Curious detail: when going on stage the musicians, as actors perhaps, say naughty “m-de” word in French (in Russian it is the same, saying something “bad” for a good luck). The English equivalent, at least in this case, was “Break your leg”.


2. “Cliente” by Josiane Balasko, who also was in Moscow. The international name is “A French gigolo” doesn`t leave much space for imagination disclosing the scenario idea immediately, but perhaps such a name is better for film promotion. Okay anyway (that`s about the movie). And honestly, we were pretty excited by the opportunity to see Josiane Balasko in Moscow. The film participated in "Gala-premiere" festival program, though in France it has been already not only shown in cinemas, but released on DVD.


3. “Melodiya dlya sharmanki” (Melody for street organ). That was in the Main competition. Ukranian film by Kira Muratova who films in a very specific manner, challenging to ordinary brains but interesting because of that. I mean the dialogues are crazy, with numerous repetitions and bizarre in general, and everybody speaks in a freakish way, but that is part of fun. By the way the leading actress, a 12-yers old girl, got the main female prize. This film was in our list because of Renata Litvinova whom we wanted to see – and she was presenting the film on the stage, and who had like five minutes of screen presence in the end of that two-hours-and-a-half movie. We also wanted to test ourselves with such a timing, because knew that watching that at home would be impossible, so opted for the festival entourage.


4.“Paris! Paris!”, international film title, the original one – “Faubourg, 36”. About Paris before the Second World War, about a tiny cabaret on Paris outskirts, about three unemployed friends dreaming about their own musical show, about French elections of 1936, when socialists were competing with nationalists, about love, about music, about families. Very good, optimistic and cheerful, even if the story itself is dramatic. The same film director as in “Les Choristes”, Christophe Barratier, who came to Moscow to present the film. The main joke of his speech was that he came to Moscow for the first time in his life and only for one day, which he will spend just watching his own movie. The film was shown within the "Around the World" festival program.



To tell you the truth, the last one I saw for free, as a person from mass media something, hmm. That is quite funny, because it`s only in May I met people enthusiastically working on their project about French cinema. The idea is to make it the main Russian speaking source of information about French cinema, which perhaps is truth already – it has its own focus. The link to their website is on the right of this page. It is a web portal, but already officially registered, with stamps, documents and all official trimmings. Me personally have got a document that I am an author there, which combined with the name (Cinema-France) suits me perfectly and also gave me free admission to one movie. Free writing in exchange of small benefits (and big ideas), that`s what we call career leap, hehe. I was placed right on the steps, as many others, because the film, as the whole festival, was well attended by public and not only all seats but even all steps were occupied. That actually corresponded well with the movie main ideas – friendliness, solidarity and enjoying all you have available however little it is.

PS: If interested, the cheapest ticket price was 300 rubles, which is around 10 USD.