Director of Photography
This nonfiction film is devoted to two great Russian artists. Instead of focusing on the history of the mundane, everyday friendship between Chekhov and Levitan, the film emphasizes the affinity of their creative efforts and the interplay of their similar, yet so different, personalities. What the authors of the film offer to their viewer is no idyll: it is the world full of nuance and contradiction that reveals itself against the backdrop of the era, at the same time uncovering the most subtle peculiarities of the two great creators. The cross-pollination of two creative methods and the interconnection of the two geniuses represent the leading motif of the film.
Director of Photography
In Nikolskoye village of Ruzsky district, farmers decided to restore the production of the first natural cheese of the Russian Empire. The tradition of making baked cheese dates back to 1795. The first cheese, named "Meschersky", was made in the home of Prince Meschersky in his estate of Lotochino. The sign of the village of Lotochina represents until now a merchant with a cheese wheel on a board. The prince had then brought from Switzerland a cheese maker named Johan Müller who developed a cheese recipe, founded a cheese-making school and settled in Russia with his family. Today, we managed to find his descendants; they live and work in the Alps. And make cheese. Very similar to the famous "Meschersky".
