Honored Art Worker Sergei Mikhailovich Ovcharov is rightfully ranked among the list of directors who are included in the "golden fund" of world cinema. The master himself says that he remains faithful to one theme all his life, and each new film is like a continuation of all the previous ones.
While other directors are trying to shoot films of different genres and are very afraid of repeating themselves - they want to be known as generalists, Ovcharov is most interested in the mythological line, so he removes films like "Fancy", "Lefty", "Barabaniada".
His work has received worldwide recognition, and as proof of this - numerous prizes and nominations for prestigious awards. Here are just a few of them:
1983 - Special prize of the jury of the "Author's Cinema" competition for the short film "Barabaniada";
1993 - Prize of the Russian Film Press in the nomination "Best Film Director of the Year";
1999 - Prize of the Berlin Film Festival "Golden Bear" for the film "Pharaoh".
In addition to directing, Ovcharov is engaged in screenwriting: he wrote more than thirty scripts for films and commercials. He also draws superbly and makes exhibitions of his "handwriting" - as he calls his artwork.
In addition, he teaches at St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Technology and at the Higher School of Directors and Screenwriters of St. Petersburg.
Biography
Sergey Mikhailovich Ovcharov was born in 1955 in Rostov-on-Don. His family had nothing to do with art, but Sergey was drawn to cinema since childhood. Therefore, after graduating from school, he received his education as a director at the Moscow State Institute of Culture, where his head was the famous Grigory Roshal, and then graduated from courses at the USSR State Committee for Cinematography with the no less famous Gleb Panfilov.
His directorial experience is over thirty years, and all this time he has been working at the Lenfilm film studio.
Career
His first debut work as a director was the short film Non-Skladuha (1979). This is a director's degree work that censorship did not like. They wanted to destroy the film, but he miraculously escaped, but the audience saw it only at the beginning of the two thousandth.
A similar fate awaited the painting "Unbeatable" (1983), although she was admired by Tarkovsky, Panfilov, Sokurov, German. The viewers wrote in the reviews that this is not a comedy, that "Out of the blue" rather resembles a kind of film fresco, consisting of many components. This is both a bright and light parable, which seems to be played out by a folklore theater. Moreover, Ovcharov shot the film secretly, at the risk of losing his job. And the roles in this film were played by the then young Alexei Buldakov, Nina Usatova, Alexander Kuznetsov, Vyacheslav Polunin. These actors were later delighted to have contributed to this project.
Director's philosophy
As for mythology, it is different in Ovcharov's films. For example, we see the myths of the proletarians in the film Lefty, the myths of the bureaucracy in the film It, and the myths of perestroika in the films Barabaniada, Pharaoh, and Hercules.
Ovcharov also summoned the works of the Kostroma artist Yefim Chestnyakov from oblivion and, based on his fairy tale, shot the short film Sochinushki. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Everything that Ovcharov shoots is close to the Russian heart, all his work is directed to the souls of people - they amuse, amuse and teach good.
