Guide

Director: Alexander Hvan

TV feature film

directors:
Andrei Sigle , Dmitri Svetozarov

Producer:
Alexander Hvan
Scenario writer:
Arkadiy Krasilshikov

Key Actors:
Vladimir Golovin, Igor Lifanov,
Larisa Malevannaia, honoured artist of Russian Federation,
Eugene Merkuriev , honoured artist of Russian Federation,
Oksana Bazilevich

Director of Photography - Ivan Bagaev
Sound producer – Sisolatin A. A,
Sound Producer – Natalie Kochergina


Pavel Shnirev (Igor Lifanov) is a professional killer. He has lots of enemies and a number of problems. He rushes, he is persecuted….Pavel’s mother (Larisa Malevannaia) was taken into hospital, he learned from her that his father is alive.
Pavel goes in a far away village, where he founds his father.
Pavel’s father (Vladimir Golovin), lost his sight, but it doesn’t impede his life. He has always nearby him a guide-dog. Pavel finds a different life – village people, their simple way of life, fathers chores. Mother arrives, hunted by Pavel’s enemies in order to take her son in a quiet place and to hide for some time. But Pavel does not leave the aged, sensing in him a guide. Seemingly, everything will be different, than the past.

From the interview with a producer Alexander Hvan.

-Why you have been attracted by the project “Guide”?
- The truth is that when I opened a scenario and at the first page read, that a hero’s profession is killing, I had a big desire to slam it and never come back to this theme. But when I forced myself to turn the page, read very carefully and understood that in this history there is different life, different characters. Guide’s scenario goes regardless of up-to-date tendency in our cinematography, when a human with a cold steel becomes almost a voice of the national idea.

-What is the main point in this history?
-Our main hero, Pavel (Igor Lifanov) – drains his spirit (it is presumed, that he had participated in the Second World War), murder becomes a usual occupation for him. When he was left vulnerable, he has to escape. And at this moment his mother tells him a family’s secret – he has a father. He is living by absolutely different life, in a village, besides, he is blind. His father lives in a harmony with himself, in his little world, where only he, his dog Chigik and their flea-pit house exist. Our hero, a cool and sighted person feels himself defective with his inferior father. This is how the idea stands: a sighted person is blind, and a blind person can see. As a result of this reversal of charachter, Pavel simply takes a place of his father. «Guide» - in many respects is a history of a human’s discernment.

-«Guide» is a history of a dog?

-A dog-guide is used in a film as some kind of symbol. A dog shows a boundless love to his master and is a friend – and in a sense presents itself an example for human beings. Making a reservation, our movie is not a predicant one, it is a keenly plotted movie.

-Shootings of the film take place in a vivid background: Saint-Petersburg, Kronstadt and Valdai….

-One of the motives of this film is a contrast of an urban life with its urbanism, cruelty, prudence, vindictiveness, dissatisfaction, and a rural life. The matter doesn’t concern agricultural fascination of life; the meaning is in unity with nature. Both of these places – Saint-Petersburg and Valdai marvelously contrasting with each other, helping to create necessary dramatic atmosphere….Though in one episode we have a cow’s milking, which will perform an actor Vladimir Golovin (Pavel’s father). It is astonishing, when he came for movie tests he informed that few years already lives not far from Valdai, such a coincidence made me immediately confirm him in this role.

- How do you define the style of the film?
A film is sufficiently cruel, modern but the idea is eternal. It is a parable, not conventional, built upon the real, absolutely mundane things. I know that detail in a film is the main thing: details of clothes and interior, of characters of personalities.

Urban and rural scenes stylistically will be totally different, that is why at the moment we are looking for a common denominator for these polar worlds.