Golden Camera 300 For Life Achievement

MANAKI BROTHERS Awards ANATOLI PETRITSKY

Life Achievement Award “GOLDEN CAMERA 300” winner at the 28th ICFF MANAKI BROTHERS is the giant of Russian and world film, Anatoli Petritsky. The Festival will be held between September 25-30 at Bitola, Republic of Macedonia.

As cinematographer, the exceptional Anatoli Petritsky has signed the magnificent work of the famous Sergei Bondarchuk – the epochal historical spectacle WAR AND PEACE (awarded with Oscar and Globus) with visual technical design, which even Hollywood has not realized until then (1965/67).

Petritsky confirms his visual gigantism and superior artistic feeling, which he showed in WAR AND PEACE, in the rest of his works (including MY TENDER AND AFFECTIONATE BEAST, MIMINO, THE APPOINTMENT, HIGH TITLE).

Exactly this put Petritsky at the top of the list of Russian cinematographers and provided him the title – one of the founders of the Russian cinematography.

Anatoly Petritsky (75) is in the ranks of the most eminent and one of the most respected cinematographers – founders of the Russian cinematography and creators with an exceptional contribution to the world's film art for about three decades.

Anatoly Petritsky was born in 1931 in Ukraine. His father was a famous painter who along with painting worked in different theatres of a huge country that used to be called USSR.

The fact that he grew up surrounded by canvases, painting colors and books about arts had influence upon his whole life. In 1950, he came to Moscow and entered the camera department of All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) as it was called at those times. In 1955, he graduated from VGIK and was taken to Mosfilm where he still works now. In Mosfilm, he passed all the levels of cameraman's assistant work: changed focus, put in cassettes, guided dollies, sent the ready prints to development laboratory and in general did a lot of things that are obvious for a cameraman's assistant. This had been happening until the first cameraman of the motion picture 'People on the Bridge' got ill. The film was being shot in winter of 1959 in Siberia on the Yenisei River. He had to shoot some episodes for this motion picture.

Anatoly Petritsky as cinematographer has signed 15 titles, but he enters the highly deserved position on the top of the world's film with the four parts of the epic historic film spectacle WAR AND PEACE, made after one of the greatest literary works in the world's and Russian literature – the same title novel by Lav Tolstoy signed by Sergey Bondarchuk, its screenwriter, director, and main actor.

Before starting his years-long exhausting work on the four-parts film spectacle, Bondarchuk had been successfully developing his acting career and thus firmly confirming his double talent as an actor and a director in the film MAN'S FATE – a film awarded with Grand Prix at the Moscow Film Festival in 1959. Petritsky, 11 years younger than Bondarchuk (1920-1994), enters the WAR AND PEACE project with a modest experience from the two shot feature films in which he was the cinematographer, one of them was MY YOUNGER BROTHER (1962) directed by Alexander Zharky, who was the only one who could recommend him to Bondarchuk for the epochal WAR AND PEACE.

Following long production preparations that Mosfilm started in 1961 and after the long shooting, the results of the Bondarchuk-Petritsky cooperation became obvious in 1965, when the first part of the film historical tetralogy WAR AND PEACE PART I: ANDREY BOLKONSKY was finished, with which Bondarchuk once again, after MAN'S FATE, triumphed at the Moscow International Festival. He then received another Grand Prix. The experts, critics, and audience became sure that the anthology novel by Tolstoy was transformed into a grand work of art, in an adequate way, which showed all the values of the machinery of the Soviet film production of that time in the first part. This was something that the greatest Hollywood directors of historic spectacles became also sure of! In the first part, Bondarchuk and his collaborators, especially Anatoly Petritsky, managed to grasp the visual magnificence of a historic spectacle on all levels. Film history marks that in the production of this impressively gorgeous film epic the Russian Army was engaged, and that a horse regiment was formed especially for the needs of the film – over 120 thousand soldiers participated in the shooting of the mass scenes and over 35 thousand costumes intended for grasping the 19th century atmosphere were created, while a large number of them were borrowed from the museums of the Soviet Union.

With the participation of thousands of supernumeraries in the unique war battles in the history of the world's film, with the extraordinary acting team led by Director Bondarchuk himself, who also acted one of the main Tolstoy's figures – Pierre Bezhuhov (after whom the 4th part of the film was named), with costumes and scenes in the then popular Tod-Ao 70 mm film technology and tape, everything was visually and technically superiorly supervised by the cinematographer. In the spectacular battles, on a Super Wide Screen, with a volcano-like explosiveness, an extraordinary rich and profound film world was uncovered, offering the magnificence and beauty of the literary, historic, emotional, and psychological gifts that a successful film creation can absorb. The magnificence of the picture-cinematographic art is also reflected in one of the greatest film battles – the anthology battle near Borodino – one of the bloodiest in the history of wars, when 90 thousand soldiers were killed in one day, which marked the end of the penetration of Napoleon's French Army in Russia, after which his empire collapsed and he lived to see his personal disastrous end.

Three others followed the first part: WAR AND PEACE PART II: NATASHA ROSTOVA (1966, with Lydmila Savelieva in the main role); WAR AND PEACE PART III: YEAR 1812 (1967) and in the same year the fourth part, the mentioned WAR AND PEACE – PIERRE BEZHUHOV with Bondarchuk in the main role.

So, Bondarchuk created a spectacle in four parts with a duration of 500 minutes (probably one of the longest films of all times), which were then of different durations for commercial screening throughout the world. In the Soviet Union and in most parts of Europe WAR AND PEACE was screened in four parts, but the Americans were expecting it with the greatest interest. Finally, WAR AND PEACE was screened in the United States in 1968, in a shortened version of over 60 minutes and in the next year, in 1969, the members of the American Film Academy-AMPAS awarded it with an Oscar for best foreign film. The same happened with the Golden Globe – it was given to WAR AND PEACE, and in 1970 the British Film Academy/BAFTA Nominated the tandem Michail Bogdanov-Genady Myasnikov for the best art design. These two were actually the closest associates of Bondarchuk, especially of Anatoly Petritsky's in the visual-spectacular design of the historic WAR AND PEACE. So, in spite of the era of the Cold War, the Americans acknowledged that WAR AND PEACE was something that not even Hollywood had accomplished so far. Sergey Bondarchuk managed to take a big piece of Tolstoy's novel and transformed it into an equally grand piece of film without losing control over the entire process of creation. He deserved the Oscar award for the best foreign film and the Golden Globe, while some of the most objective Hollywood filmmakers, after having seen WAR AND PEACE, commented that Bondarchuk's and Petritsky's work had convincingly surpassed BEN HUR and the TEN COMMANDMENTS, particularly in the domain of the spectacular scenes. The brutal film magnificence of the Borodin Battle in 1812 remains unsurpassed for all times in the history of the world's film. It was also compared with the classic GONE WITH THE WIND, but WAR AND PEACE is more intelligent, more overall, and more tasty.

As a cinematographer, Anatoly Petritsky continues his work by signing the films: EVERY NIGHT AT 11 (1969), a genre drama made by the scenario of Edward Radzinsky and directed by Samson Samsonov (known to the Cannes' audience in 1963 when the film OPTIMISTIC TRAGEDY was nominated for a Golden Palm and in 1955 for a Silver Lion at the Venice Festival for the film GRASSHOPPER); the film drama HIGH RANK (I - SHAPOVALOV T.P.) follows in 1973, together with director Evgeny Karelov, with whom he continues cooperation in 1974 while shooting the war drama HIGH RANK (ABOUT LIFE ON EARTH) as a continuation of the one from the previous year.

In 1977, Petritsky started cooperation with the wonderful Georgian director Georgy Danelya when they shot the film MIMINO – a pleasant comedy about the adventures of the local pilot Mimino who flies his helicopter from one village to another, dreaming at the same time about flying a big “real” plane that will take him to other parts of the world. MIMINO was obviously liked by the jury of the International Film Festival in Moscow in 1977 and the director Danelya received the top festival award the Golden Statuette St. George. In the next year, 1978, Petritsky as a cinematographer signed the film that is in the ranks of the Gold collection of films of Soviet cinematography – it is the film MY GENTLE AND LOYAL ANIMAL (1978) – a historic drama and a simple romantic story about the Russian aristocracy in the 19th century in its decadent glamour on the one side and the poor girl in a village looking for love and a place under the sky on the other. MY GENTLE AND LOYAL ANIMAL is a story about friendship, love, greediness, revenge, and death – an extraordinary simple adaptation of the classic novel by Anton Chekhov, adorned by a strong atmosphere, excellent acting expression, and extraordinary Petritsky's photography that all together manage to “hunt” love throughout the film in a magic way. The success of this film was signed by director Emil Loteanu (he was nominated for this film for the Golden Palm award at Cannes Festival in 1978) and music composer Evgeny Doga from Moldova, who was again impressive in the shaping of an unforgettable picture – music emotion (they had already done that in 1975 when they shot together the picturesque, sensual, and magic melodrama GYPSIES FLY TO THE SKY).

Two years later, Petritsky cooperated with director Sergey Kolosov in the film MEETING – a comedy by the text of Alexander Volodin that had its own stage performance. Petritsky continued working with his old collaborators in 1984 – now with Vladimir Basov, director and playwright of the family drama based on the theater text of one of the greatest British writers from the last century, John Boyton Priestly – THE TIMES AND THE CONWAY FAMILY (he acted the opera singer from the Bolshoy Theater in the film MIMINO in 1977).

After the years dedicated exclusively to the cinematography, part of the compound entity of film creation, in late 80-s Anatoly Petritsky made a professionally different attempt – as a director and he signed his “first born” – THALISMAN OF LOVE (1984) and in 1987 he shot PRHALI/BERTHES according to the scenario of Genady Voronin. Once again in the production of Mosfilm, Petritsky makes a simple story about the composition of the emotional and spiritual riddle of the alienated and lonesome man of the present time who lost faith in friendship and humanity and makes an internal turnover in one day by starting a “new life”. The hero of this film – Gregory Zarokov – decides to become a sailor and joins a group of fishermen. With them, he restores love, friendship, and adventure.

Nevertheless, after all these years WAR AND PEACE is still ranking high among the film epic spectacles in the sense of the physically complex and difficult realization, artistic ambition, and brilliant performance.

Today, Anatoly Petritsky is engaged as an expert – supervisor of the projects for restoration of classic-anthology films in the production of Mosfilm. The list of the restored films is rather long. And his life in cinematography is rather long too. Along with the restoration works he lead a teaching activity in Mosfilm, preparing young generation of cinematographers to their future life in the world of cinema'.

The above mentioned facts regarding the colossal creation, so superior in demonstrating the epochal and unsurpassed spectacular work – the historic film epic WAR AND PEACE in four parts, in whose visual structure the most essential creative dimension of the cinematographer is incorporated, led the “Manaki Brothers” Festival to give this year's Life Achievement Award GOLDEN CAMERA 300 to the giant of the Russian and world's film – Anatoly Petritsky the cinematographer.

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