Works of the renowned cinematography artistic director Vladimir Svetozarov were handed over to “Lenfilm” Studios

The Presidential Library has digitized 30 original outline drawings of Vladimir Svetozarov created for released by “Lenfilm” Studios movies and handed this electronic album to the “Lenfilm” Studio. Exhibition of graphic artist and artistic director, who worked on such films as “Woodpecker doesn’t get headache,” “Heart of a Dog,” “Declaration of love,” “Idiot,” “Master and Margarita,” “Faryatiev’s Fantasies,” “Khrustalyov, my car!” “The gangster’s Petersburg” and others now adore the walls of the St. Petersburg Cinema House.

Acclaimed movie production St. Petersburg based artistic director Vladimir Svetozarov lived and worked in the Northern capital for several decades. He has visualized the best Lenfilm movies of the last forty years. Svetozarov was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Russia, became a laureate of the State National Prize, received the “Nika” and “Oryol” prizes. He is gone at the end of June 2017, but his numerous sketches for films remained.

The film production studio was the second house for the artist, after all — he was born in the family of the famous director Joseph Kheifits and actually grew up at the movie set. “Father, Hero of Socialist Labor, Stalin Prize laureate, First Secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR fixed me up for the third grade props man’s job on “Lenfilm” Studios,” — Vladimir Iosifovich later told in numerous interviews. He could have become anyone in the intimately known by him from inside movie production “kitchen.” However, from all types of cinematographic professions he chose the most creative: way back the first “Motor!” command word none other than the artist creates a world in which characters exist; it takes dozens of sketches, showing, besides an appearance and a charisma of created characters, also an environment of their inhabitance. In fact, things and the interior, in which the character lives, can sometimes tell about the character even much more than the voice-over.

After the digitized works of Vladimir Svetozarov will go through special process work, they will add to the electronic stock of the Presidential Library and will be in open access on its website.

Digitization of graphic works by a well-known artist is far from the first joint project, which was realized according an agreement on cooperation between the “Lenfilm” Studios and the Presidential Library, such important for both sides.

As early as in February 2014, General Director of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin, invited by the general director of Lenfilm Eduard Pichugin, has visited the “Lenfilm” and offered the studios to use digital technologies of the library for restoring and saving the cinematic heritage of the oldest film studio in Russia. Over the course of the implementation of the concluded agreement, in announced the Year of Russian Cinema 2016, the Presidential Library prepared for publication the album “100 “Lenfilm” movie posters,” dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the first public film screening in Russia and the 100th anniversary of the famous film studios, founded in 1914. These posters tell its entire story. The “age” of the movie posters ranges from the beginning of the XX century (pre-revolutionary silent movies with Vera Kholodnaya and Vitold Polonsky) to recent movies of Alexander Sokurov and Aleksei Herman Jr. Advertisement artworks were added to the electronic fund of the Presidential Library. In 2016, the historical calendar “Cinema and space” was collaboratively designed and released. The directors and screenwriters of “Lenfilm” are the regular guests of the Presidential Library Cinema Club.