Published the trailer of the original documentary film by Rodion Chepel “Pelevin”

The trailer of the original documentary film by Rodion Chepel “Pelevin” from the KION Originals line has been published. This is an author’s project from the creator of the film “Durov”, where the director again tries to immerse himself in the world of a hero who manages to remain anonymous, despite the worldwide recognition of his work. Film produced by the film company “Amur Waves” and KION. The premiere of the film “Pelevin” will take place on the writer’s 60th birthday, November 22, exclusively at the KION online cinema.

In recent years, Viktor Pelevin has been releasing a novel every year, each with a circulation of about 100 thousand copies – this is one of the best results in the country. At the same time, he has not given interviews for almost 20 years, does not appear in public and, according to rumors, does not live in Russia.

Victor Pelevin is a part of the history of Russian literature, he is the owner of the literary awards “Small Booker”, “Big Book”, “Nonino” and so on. In 2011, Victor Ginzburg made a film of the same name based on his novel Generation P, Konstantin Bogomolov staged the play I Fak based on his book iPhuck 10, and Maxim Didenko based on the novel Chapaev and Void. His books have been translated into many languages: English, German, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, Norwegian, etc. At the end of September of this year, Pelevin released a new “KGBT +” about the life of the son of the main characters of his previous work “Transhumanism Inc.”

Film director Rodion Chepel makes an attempt to combat hoaxes. To do this, he studied the archives, the early works of Viktor Pelevin and interviewed people who knew him. Among them are childhood friend Yevgeny Petrenko, classmate at the Literary Institute named after A. M. Gorky, editor-in-chief of the Literary Review magazine Viktor Kulle, as well as artist and musician Hermes Zaigott. The style of the writer’s work is recalled by his former editor Olga Aminova and the first editor-in-chief of VOGUE Russia Alena Doletskaya. The well-known literary critic Galina Yuzefovich comments on the facts from Pelevin’s biography. Bronislav Vinogrodsky, a sinologist, who traveled with his followers to Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, tells about Pelevin’s connection with Eastern philosophy. A veteran of the FSO of Russia and a member of the military group of the Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation Igor Chechetkin and the creator of the Punto Switcher computer program Sergey Moskalev went there together with the writer.

Alena Doletskaya, the first editor-in-chief of Vogue Russia: “Pelevin had a total indifference to recognition. This made me really like him. He has some activities that he considers more interesting, worthy, exciting. Everything he did in literature was always a little (or not a little) a step forward. Where by step I mean 5 years, 7 years, 10 years. He felt with some kind of animal scent what was coming.

In his investigation, Rodion Chepel plunges into the mysterious worlds of Viktor Pelevin, finds out what characters the people from the writer’s biography turned into and bit by bit builds a chronology of the writer’s amazing life. Victor Pelevin was born into a special family (his mother was the head of a grocery store, his father worked abroad in the Air Defense Forces), received a Lenin scholarship, edited translations of the works of the esoteric philosopher Carlos Castaneda, and lived in China for a whole year. All the information presented in the film is supported by facts and testimonies of real people, and in order to find the last traces of Viktor Pelevin, the authors of the picture studied various databases.

The creation of the film “Pelevin” was carried out by the studio “Amur Waves”, which worked on the projects “Durov”, “Sakharov. Two lives”, “This is Edik”. The film studio was founded by producer Alexander Urzhanov, investigator Rodion Chepel, editor Igor Sadreev, director Roman Super, producer Maria Serpionova, cameraman Mikhail Orkin, writer Roman Shtyl-Bitynsh and sociologist Nika Glazunova.

The authors of “Pelevin” have sensitively caught the trend towards viewer documentaries, told in a popular way – the film combines documentary narration with animated frames, and animated plots not only illustrate historical facts, but look like full-fledged dramatic lines of the film. Animadoc is a special genre that reduces the distance between the viewer and the character, as, for example, is done in the works “You know, mother, where I was” by Rezo Gabriadze or “Persepolis” by the Iranian Marzhan Satrapi.
Animated inserts for “Pelevin” were made by the Zhi-Shi studio, which created a video for the song “Austin” from Zemfira’s latest album “Borderline”. The studio team is engaged in the production of advertising, computer graphics, game trailers, music videos and mapping shows.

Rodion Chepel, director: “By analyzing the characters who have made a significant contribution to who we feel ourselves to be, we realized that Pelevin is one of the figures that cannot be passed by. In addition, this year he turns 60 years old, and this is a kind of gift for his anniversary. To approach the main character and describe the life that he so carefully guards – this was the main task and at the same time the main difficulty in working on the film.

Igor Mishin, CEO of MTS Media/KION, producer: “Probably, in modern Russia there is no other writer than Viktor Pelevin, a documentary about which would be so necessary today. Surrounded by secrets and hoaxes, inaccessible to journalists, Pelevin is an ideal character for a portrait film. We consider it one of our missions to acquaint the audience with ambiguous characters and give the authors a platform for expression. “Pelevin” will complement KION’s catalog of documentaries and series that tell about iconic characters and through them introduce the audience to the world around us.”

Galina Yuzefovich, literary critic: “Pelevin’s part of his novels are so-called newsletters. We are all drowning in information noise. Once a year, Viktor Olegovich appears, shuffling with an invisible leg. And he says the phrase: “I will now explain to you what the last year was about.” This is an incredibly popular item. Pelevin today comes out with a circulation of 150 thousand copies, and this is a lot. It’s atypical a lot. Almost no one has that many.”

Angelina Ashman, documentary film curator at KION online cinema, film producer: “Documentaries and series are an important area of ​​KION Originals. Each new project on the platform is a challenge and an event supported by the interest of the audience. Together with authors who are not indifferent to our reality, we find the most relevant topics, which contain stories with their own dramaturgy, and tell them in such a way that they are of interest to a wide range of viewers. Victor Pelevin is one big mystery, which, I am sure, any reader has been interested in at least once. And I still believe that Russia remains the most reading country in the world. The documentary film by Rodion Chepel is the first attempt to lift the veil of secrecy over the life of one of the most famous Russian writers of our time.”

Olga Aminova, editor of Viktor Pelevin: “Everyone is looking for a meeting with him, but no one sees him. What is this model? This is the model of God. It’s very easy to use and it works. Pelevin, in my opinion, is one of those authors who clearly understands that you first need to create a brand. And then the brand will work without the participation of the author. There is only text. No interviews, no publications, no screen time.”

Source – online media website artmoskovia.ru.