Press and blog quotes
Under Review: ‘Ward 6′
Itsjustmovies.com (USA), March 18, 2010
Ward 6″ is a powerful reflective film taking the viewer through an introspective journey. Adding to its realism, and the fact that it was based on the true case of an asylum administrator who ends up committed to the institution he ran, “Ward 6″ was actually filmed on location in Russia at an institution for the mentally ill and includes interviews with actual inmates who explain their goals and dreams and what led to their incarceration.
Movies des maitres
nashfilm.ru, December 30, 2009
…Almost the whole movie is made in the genre of documentary investigation of how Ragin, chief executive of an mental asylum, contrived to become its patient. These people, engaged in addition to everything else into an interaction of generations, have no alternative but to go insane, for insanity is the only possible way to protest against the absurdity, ferocity and desolation of human life. Those vegetating in the asylum in beastly conditions, with neither right nor hope for ever leaving it, they are not insane but distracted, each having a serious reason to be so... Having changed the background from the XIX century to that of our days Shakhnazarov has at the same time preserved Chekhov's language of the XIX century which gave the movie its peculiar air alluding that very little has changed in the Russian soul and quaesitum ever since.
http://www.nashfilm.ru/modernkino/4330.html
The “Golden Eagle” Nominees have been announced
“Russian Newsweek”, December 24, 2009
5 Russian movie pictures including “Anna Karenina” by Sergey Solovyev, “Ward No.6” by Karen Shakhnazarov, “Pete on the Way to Kingdom of Heaven” by Nikolay Dostal, “Hipsters” by Valery Todorovsky and “Tzar” by Pavel Lungin claim the victory in the main “Golden Eagle” nomination 2009, reports a “RIA Novosti” correspondent.
http://www.runewsweek.ru/news/culture/31843/?referer1=rss&referer2=news
Our cinema: from Russia with love
Boris Tuh, theater and film critic, Postimes.ru, December 18, 2009
The film director has set the film in our days and demonstrated convincingly that Chekhov wrote about the immortal. One can feel the piercing pain in the shots, we are really weak…weak people… Once you come into this world, you already get tired and ill…
http://rus.postimees.ee/?id=202397
The first film by “Mosfilm” released in the Blu-ray Disc format happened to be “Ward No.6”.
“Vechernyaya Moskva”, December, 18 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov’s film is recorded on the disc with a “blue ray”. The first “Mosfilm” movie released in the new format is the new film by Karen Shakhnazarov “Ward No.6”
http://www.vmdaily.ru/article.php?aid=88593
Russian hipsters up for Golden Globes?
Russia Today, December 9, 2009
Two Russian movies – “Hipsters” and “Ward #6” – could win prestigious nominations for the Golden Globes awards which will be announced on December 15...
http://rt.com/Art_and_Fun/2009-12-09/golden-globes-hipsters-ward.html
The Russian nominee for “Oscar” in New-York
Michael Gutkin (New-York), “Voice of America”, 1st December 2009
The American opening night of the new film “Ward No 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov took place in New-York… Michael Gutkin, a correspondent in the “Voice of America” Russian service, visited the opening night.
http://www1.voanews.com/russian/news/arts/Ward-No-Six-Oscar-2009-12-01-78272812.html
Ward No. 6 in the USA
Evgeny Popov, Ilya Kozhukhov, Vesti, December 1, 2009
A lot of people queue up in front of the cinemas in the USA to watch the film "Ward No 6" by the Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov. American public even do not mind the fact that the film has not been dubbed into English. Film distributors decided to preserve the author's style.
http://www.vesti.ru/videos?vid=251108
Ward No. 6
November 27, 2009
Longing for the Old Days and Looking for Meaning
Stephen Holden, The New-York Times, November 27, 2009
Early in “Ward No. 6,” an updated adaptation of Chekhov’s famous short story set in a Russian provincial mental hospital, the chief doctor, Hobotov (Evgeny Stychkin), leads a documentary film crew through the halls of the shabby institution. In a movie that deliberately blurs the line between fiction and reality, present and past, the sane and the crazy, interviews with actual mental patients (one of whom claims to have killed John Lennon on orders from the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov) are interspersed with actors playing residents speaking Chekhov’s dialogue.
...“Ward No. 6,” the Russian submission for this year’s foreign-language Academy Award, has a disorienting sense of time. Although set in 2007-8, the movie, which has a scene in contemporary Moscow with traffic jams and naked dancing girls, features Chekhov’s dialogue from the story published in 1892, conjuring a slower-paced late-19th-century life with endless room for philosophic rumination. The juxtaposition seems to imply that below the frantic pace of modern Russian life, the same longing for “the old days” expressed by many of Chekhov’s characters still applies.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/movies/27ward.html
A Fine Madness
Henry Stewart, “The L Magazine”, November 25, 2009
Shakhnazarov's film achieves a frightening authenticity with (what must be) a combination of professional and non-professional performers; neither group condescends to the flashy theatrics that mark the downfall of so many portrayals of madness. The performances, especially of the two remarkable leads Vladimir Ilyin and Aleksei Vertkov, aren't rooted in the imitation of superficial gesture but in a thoroughly realized internality, a spiritual hopelessness that organically seeps out through wet red eyes. Ilyin plays Ragin, the former hospital-chief who became an inmate himself under the influence of a patient, Gromov (Vertkov), whom the doctor takes to calling a prophet; their philosophical tête-á-têtes, in which Gromov's contemptuous cynicism breaks down the doctor's assumptions, exposing the meaninglessness of Ragin's hitherto sheltered life, play out like mental combat...
“Celebrating Chekhov” and Ward No. 6
Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice, November 24, 2009
With "Celebrating Chekhov," Lincoln Center compiles seven screen adaptations from the good doctor. Of the five Soviet-era productions, 1970's Uncle Vanya is apparently the most renowned. Andrei Konchalovsky—later émigré and co-director of Tango & Cash—directs in tony, stultifyingly loyal tradition, revisiting your great-grandfather's favorite bits of symbolic staging: Running-down clocks signify decline; birdcages and banisters, imprisonment; long views down enfilades, alienation. This horribly subtitled print may represent the finest filmed Vanya—but the really reimagined film here is Ward No. 6.
...Based on Chekhov's 1892 story of a provincial doctor who winds up in his own asylum, scourged out of his professional complacency by dialogues with a philosophical inmate, Aleksander Gornovsky and Karen Shakhnazarov's film, having its American premiere, begins on a dust-blowing conceit, interviewing actual wards of state in a contemporary Russian institution. Konchalovsky's Vanya assured its Soviet audience that they were looking back on prehistory from the better world that Vanya and Dr. Astrov wish they'd been born to. In Ward No. 6, Aleksei Vertkov's prophet-madman is still awaiting "the beautiful life there will be on earth in time," here, today, on the far side of Russian Utopianism.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-24/film/celebrating-chekhov-and-ward-no-6/
Five helmers discuss their foreign-language hopefuls
Michelle McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter, November 19, 2009
Based on a story by famed Russian author Anton Chekhov, writer-director Karen Shakhnazarov's "Ward No. 6" follows a doctor who ends up committed at his own facility.
“What I wanted to say with the film is that one should understand that the human world is made up of different kinds of people. Every individual has his own point of view and understanding of this world. If his idea of the world does not fully coincide with yours, it doesn't at all mean that individual is insane. It's just that his point of view is different from yours. One should have patience and understanding."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ida2894bc190c143cbb160c5655571e09
…and the Oscar goes to… Chekhov?
”Ward No. 6” has been selected as the Russian contender for the American Movie Academy Award
Marina Latysheva, RBK Daily Weekend, October 2, 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov shot his own present-day interpretation of Chekhov's story in a psychoneurologic asylum and all the supporting roles were played by its patients.
“I have no doubt that this story is universal and quite clear to anyone, the movie's been shown within different film festivals and received good references. It’s another matter that it’s out of Hollywood trends. It is true that the Best Foreign Film Oscar is quite a different thing within the Academy but the people that select and appraise films - are those brought up in Hollywood" - said Karen Shakhnazarov to the RBK Daily Weekend.
http://weekend.rbcdaily.ru/2009/10/02/show/434352
The Academy is to examine ”Ward No. 6”
Sergey Averin, “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, September 28, 2009
“Ward No. 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov is a present-day interpretation of Chekhov's classic story and Russia's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar ", said the head of Russian Oscar Committee Vladimir Menshov.
— The selection for Oscar has been quite unexpected to me — said Karen Shakhnazarov to MK. — The film as it is is anitcommercial. When I was working at it I wasn’t trying to philander with the audience or with the criticists – I was making it just for myself. And I appreciate that my work has been so highly valued...
About premier “Ward No 6” by Karen Shahnazarov
Bernhard Kammel (Austria), Filmemacher GmbH, September 23, 2009
“Il’in is a breathing face of Ragin on the nephrite, Fuji-green background. Again and again this image faces me at night in my dreams and when awakening. And every time I feel eternity. Calming lightness of being which undertakes everything. When you are faint, all will be all right because you know that it was you, who fainted and it was you who trusted himself to the free fall into nonexistence. And you know it’s impossible to fall anywhere deeper than nonexistence. And when you are falling then everybody is falling and if everybody is falling then you will not fall deeper than the others. There is no such an injustice, it just can’t exist. You are not alone.
There is somebody here, somebody who catches up the fallers with extreme care.
Ward Number 6
Ronnie Scheib, Variety, September 23, 2009
Karen Shaknazarov's brilliant contemporary take on the oft-filmed Chekhov novella "Ward 6" reps the versatile Russian helmer's most iconoclastic film yet. Shakhnazarov takes the story, about the head of a hospital whose fascination with a patient in the lunatic wing leads to his own incarceration there, and transposes it into the middle of a faux documentary. Fragmenting Chekhov's descriptions and putting them into the mouths of characters in mock interviews, juggling chronology, inserting silent homemovie footage and finally abandoning narrative altogether, the helmer deconstructs Chekhov to dazzling effect...
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941086.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&nid=2577
“… Life was dull and stifling in the town”
Ludmila Pruzhanskaya (Montreal), Russians.ca, September 9, 2009
The 33d World Film Festival was held in Montreal between August 27 and September 7, 2009. These notes are about one of the most significant films that were shown there.
”…life was dull and stifling in the town; that the townspeople had no lofty interests, but lived a dingy, meaningless life, diversified by violence, coarse profligacy, and hypocrisy; that scoundrels were well fed and clothed, while honest men lived from hand to mouth; that they needed schools, a progressive local paper, a theatre, public lectures, the co-ordination of the intellectual elements; that society must see its failings and be horrified.”
For pity’s sake! What is this piece about? Who is this piece about? Where and when? It sounds suspiciously topical. Is it about us? But is it about us that are here or there? You can try these words on every society, distant or contemporary, it will be the truth. The quotation above is a fragment of the Ivan Dmitrievich Gromov’s inner monologue from the famous “Ward no. 6” by Chekov that was recently screened by well-known Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov.
This film has opened the Russian program of the Montreal World Film Festival.
http://www.russians.ca/article.php?ArticleID=4589
Near is my straightjacket, but nearer is my skin
//Normal insanity in theShakhnazarov’s “Ward No. 6”
Lydia Maslova, “Kommersant”, September 8, 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov’s Ward No. 6, an adaptation of Chekov’s story was released. In production interviews with the asylum’s patients were used The directors have brought the story to the present day and made of the chekov’s text direct speech for the heroes that are speaking to the camera as if for some film about the main hero, doctor Ragin.
If the film’s creators have some global goals that’s more likely not to remind about the Chekov’s everlasting importance but to try see Chekov as much more religious writer as it’s believed, so the asylum is situated in the former cloister and all mentions of immortality in the text are careful picked up and collected…
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1233559&ThemesID=102
“Ward no.6” has show the asylum as it is
Stepan Zvezdin, “Gorod Gid Novosibirsk”, September 6, 2009
After being approved by the producer and released in the Novosibirsk cinema, “Ward no. 6” became the most significant premiere for the week (today you can watch the movie in the “Cinema Park” of “Pobeda”). The movie has already become a participant of the 31th Moscow International Film Festival and Vladimir Ilyin who played leading role won “Silver St. George” for the best actor in leading role.
http://www.gorodgid.ru/news/newsArticles/3119
Karen Shakhnazarov, Without “Ward No 6” we could hardly have created “The Assassin of the Tsar”
Maria Sveshnikova, Russia TV Channel, September 3, 2009
A new film of Karen Shakhnazarov was released. The name is Ward No. 6 and it is based on the story by Anton Pavlovich Chekov. The director has been working on this movie for the 20 years: The scenario was written by him together with Aleksander Borodyansky in 1989. Karen Georgievich tried to maintain the spirit of the text, even the dialogues are as they are in the original story. The storyline was changed entirely, but that was done in such a delicate way that this “barbarous act” doesn’t provoke any negative emotions. As the result, the movie takes place in our days. Moreover, for the leading roles the director has invited an amazing master of unpredictable transformations Vladimir Ilyin and Alexey Vertkov, an expert of monologues and mood of the Russian classics from the theatre of Zhenovatch.
Chekhov’s “Ward No. 6” has become a documentary in the hands of Karen Shakhnazarov
Ekaterina Barabash, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, September 3, 2009
The more difficulty there is in the adaptation of a classic, the more persistent are the directors in their efforts to retell his works by means of the cinema. Chekhov’s stories are as difficult to adapt as, to say, stories by Bunin, for the author’s words are too significant and too brilliant to do without it. And yet another attempt is released today – “Ward No. 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov.
… Karen Shakhnazarov understood that for adaptation of Chekhov’s stories you need to find a special form. The “documentary” manner allows you to preserve many things, not to disturb them, and in the first place to preserve the authors language and therefore the author's position on the events. The plot of Chehkov’s narration is so wide and varied, that any ornaments may inserted into it, even the boldest ones. The director used this very opportunity.
http://www.ng.ru/culture/2009-09-03/8_Shahnazarov.html
Who will be driven insane by “Ward No. 6”
//The film by Karen Shakhnazarov will open the main competition of the 7th “Amur Autumn” festival
Yulia Borisova, “Amurskaya Pravda”, September 3, 2009
For the first time “Amur Autumn” will be opened by the film of the cult Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov. The seventh cinema forum begins with “Ward No. 6”, a premiere, which has already made a sensation and has been awarded with different prizes.
http://www.ampravda.ru/2009/09/03/022954.html
Karen Shakhnazarov: “There is always an element of ward no. 6 in the world”
Egor Arefyev, Utro.ru, September 3, 2009
On the third of September the new film “Ward No. 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov, an adaptation of Chekhov’s story of the same name, is released. The reporter of “Utro” talks with the director of what you can and what you cannot do in the modern cinema on the day before the premiere.
http://www.utro.ru/articles/2009/09/02/835226.shtml
At the constant number 6 //13th film by Karen Shakhnazarov
Andrey Plakhov, Kommersant «Weekend», August 28, 2009
Although the new film by Karen Shakhnazarov had an unlucky number, it turned out to be successful and pleasantly unexpected as the creation of the youngest maître of Russian film direction.
…The turn-down of the classical approach and Shakhnazarov’s return to the non-conformist ideas of his youth, even if they were put into life not consistently enough, were the most important things in the result that was achieved.
…The largest success of the film is that it gives a feeling of life’s solemn tragedy, the one that occurs in the life of each person at least once, no matter how self-confident a person is.
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1222884
The seventh Moscow Premiere Festival opens today
Gazeta.ru, August 27, 2009
The main events will take place in the Great Hall of The Cinema House today with the opening of the seventh festival of Russian cinema “The Moscow Premiere”.
The official opening will be followed by the premiere of the film “Ward No. 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov. The film is a non-classic adaptation of Chekhov’s story: the scene was moved to the present and the shooting was done in the functioning mental home. Popular actor Vladimir Ilyin was cast in the leading role.
The film by Shakhnazarov will give a start to a real parade of premieres, which will last for a week. The program includes more than 100 films, 54 of which are screened for the first time.
http://www.gazeta.ru/news/culture/2009/08/27/n_1397457.shtml
Karen Shakhnazarov: “My aim is to trigger people’s emotions”
Ksenia Sakharnova, proficinema.ru, June 25, 2009
On June 24, 2009 within the main competition of The 31st Moscow International film festival took place the premiere screening of the new film by Karen Shakhnazarov “Ward No. 6”. After the screening the film crew came to meet the audience.
“My aim, - said Shakhnazarov, - is to trigger people’s emotions. It is viewers’ task to interpret the film, and I have no right to force anything on them. The film is dead until it meets its viewer. Everything is as the audience decided”.
http://www.proficinema.ru/mainnews/festival/detail.php?ID=61243
31 MIFF, the sixth day: trampling down death by death
It’s no doubt that the world cinema got ruptured, tired, and it speaks of a tragic loss with more heart than of a happy gain, of death more than of life. The 31st Moscow International film festival didn’t pass it by, if judging by the films screened on July 25, 2009, on the sixth day of the festival.
How can a person live in an evil, cruel world, having lost his virginity both in physical and existential sense not to soil his hands in its blood? … Not to become a butcher, an assassin, a deadly enemy to himself and to the world. How to keep your soul pure and stay sane in the world that denies you?
Karen Shakhnazarov in his “Ward No. 6” turned to Chekhov for the answer. He doesn’t pressure viewers with pop-art as it was in the Geman “Lady with the Little Dog”, but adapted the classic as simple as he could, understandable, almost illustrative.
http://www.proficinema.ru/mainnews/festival/detail.php?ID=61252
Karen Shakhnazarov made a film about faith and schizophrenia
Director Karen Shakhnazarov presented his new film “WARD NO. 6” at the current Moscow International Film Festival
Galina PARSEGOVA, “Vechernyaya Moskva”, June 29, 2009
In 1986 his film already was presented in the competition of MIFF, it was COURIER, loved both by critics and by the audience. Now, 23 years later, his new picture WARD NO. 6, based on the famous Chekhov’s story, which was adapted for the screen both by Russian and foreign directors, participates in the main competition of MIFF.
Karen Shakhnazarov: “I returned to the idea of making this film mostly due to Vladimir Ilyin. I couldn’t imagine anyone in this role before him. But when I saw him acting in the final scene of THE VANISHED EMPIRE, I realized, that I finally met my Ragin”.
“…the film was very demanding. But now the pressure is leaving me. I gained a lot, and I consider WARD NO. 6 to be a special film in my biography. The main thing is that I understood Chekhov in a new way. He suddenly opened to me as a religious writer – no less then Dostoevsky”.
http://www.vmdaily.ru/article.php?aid=79522
Karen Shakhnazarov’s film WARD NO 6 was presented at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival
Radio Svoboda, June 26, 2009
Dmitry Bykov: “Of course, it is absolutely the right route, it shows that here comes everybody. The Russian sanctity, the Russian madness, the Russian fear – they all lead to the ward. Anyone trying to reflect and to get away from the existing convention will end up there, will come there. Moreover, I am absolutely sure that the both girls appearing in the final shot of the film will end up the same manner, as one of them is clearly insane and the other is clearly a saint. He shows that in Russia there is only one way to excape ward No. 6: not to contemplate. The minute you look down the furrow you are in it will suck you down.
http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/1763288.html
Karen Shakhnazarov: “The cinema should give hope”
Valeriya Gorelova, “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, June 26, 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov : «…in the film WARD NO. 6 we went against Chekhov just once: we left the lead character alive. And by that we left hope”.
http://www.mk.ru/culture/308214.html
Schizophrenia, visualization
gzt.ru, June 24, 2009
Shot in gloomy colours, the film simply forced the creators to experiment with light. Rich colour is applied here very carefully, in bits. The general concept of the film commands: image is not the essence. The essence is the soul of the characters. Following the command Vladimir Ilyin acts incomparably. His Ragin is real magic. One cannot resist it.
http://gzt.ru/culture/245395.html
Crysis: take one
General Director of Mosfilm on the present moment and possible future of our cinema
Valery Kitchin, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, February 17, 2009
RG: You have finished your new film based on Chekhov’s story “Ward No. 6”. Why did you use this very story and why now?
Shakhnazarov: It is a coincidence to some extent. We wrote this screenplay 20 years ago with Sasha Borodyansky and we were supposed to shoot it with an Italian producer starring Marcello Mastroianni. Though we left all Chekhov’s dialogues, the scene was moved to the present, and it did not suit Italians: they wanted something like “Dark Eyes”. It fell apart. Although we had started working with Mastroianni and got a wonderful impression of his company. Now I think the Italians were right and superstar like that didn’t match the concept. Many things I had invented back then I used later in “Assassin” – the film grew out of “Ward No. 6”. And the screenplay was waiting because I couldn’t find an actor to play the leading role. And while shooting the final scene of “The Vanished Empire” I noticed that Vladimir Ilyin was in perfect shape. And that gave me an impetus to return to “Ward No. 6”. But 20 years have passed and the screenplay had to be “extra modernized”. I think, it’s good at last, that it had to wait: in the middle of 80s mental hospitals arose too many political allusions. And Chekhov is amazingly modern without them as well. It’s even scary that nothing changed within a hundred years.
RG: Who else starred in the film?
Shakhnazarov: Besides Ilyin there is Vertkov from the theatre of Zhenovatch, it’s his first big film role. Also cast Evgeny Stychkin, Alexander Pankratov-Chyorny. And because we shot the film in the functioning mental home there are also its actual patients. I’m planning to finish my work by the end of March.
http://www.rg.ru/2009/02/17/kino.html
Shakhnazarov adapted Chekhov in his “Ward No. 6”. Stychkin feels like he’s a milkmaid in the modern version
www.lenta.tv, January 26, 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov’s film crew settled in one of the sanatoriums in the vicinity of Moscow. A small room, office chairs standing in a row, a wide polished shiny table – when you find yourself on the set, it's hard to guess that “Ward No. 6” is being shot. The fact is that Karen Georgievich by the wave of his powerful hand moved the scene of the story to the present day. And now the characters instead of frock-coats wear elegant metallic-colored suits and instead of half-ruined wing of ward no. 6 there is a whole mental home.
Mosfilm is turning 85
Press conference of Karen Shakhnazarov at “RIA novosti” agency, Januaru 29, 2009
Press conference of Karen Shakhnazarov, general director of Mosfilm Cinema Concern, People’s Artist of Russia, chairman of the commission for culture of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, laureate of the State Prizes, marking the 85th anniversary of Mosfilm. Since its foundation the principal cinema studio of Russia has produced over 2,5 thousand films, many of which now belong to the golden fund of the world cinema. Almost 70 percent of Russian cinema is now produced at Mosfilm. Problems and perspectives of Russian cinema will also be the matter of meeting with the journalists.
(video version): http://www.rian.ru/press_video/20090129/160468295.html
STARS OF OSTANKINO – Karen Shakhnazarov: Mosfilm was ward no. 6
Valeri Konovalov, “Zvezdniy boulvar”, January 2, 2009
— And what film are you making now, Karen Georgievich?
— It’s “Ward No. 6” based on Anton Chekhov’s story. We wrote this screenplay 20 years ago with Sasha Borodyansky. We were supposed to shoot it with the Italians. Marcello Mastroianni was to star in it. We even started working. But something went wrong. As the word is, the times were like that. The certain reason to stop the project were difficulties with the Italian producers. They wanted a kind of a costume film more traditional than our version. We moved the scene to the modern days, but preserved Chekhov’s dialogues. And now we’ve returned to that script.
— And who will replace Mastroianni?
— Now Volodya Ilyin is to play the leading role, and as the second character, Ivan Gromov, is portrayed by Alexey Vertkov from the theatre of Sergey Zhenovach.
— And when will the premiere be?
— We have entirely finished all of the shooting. Now I’m editing it and it’s almost done. I expect the film to be ready by the beginning of March. Then we will watch and decide when to release it.
http://www.zbulvar.ru/newspaper/streaks/articles/detail.php?STID=19363&phrase_id=364411
As doctor Chekhov prescribed
Irina Korneeva, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, June 26, 2009
Karen Shakhnazarov narrated Chekhov’s story with the cold-bloodedness of a doctor who is used to diagnosing lethal diseases in his patients every day.
Karen Shakhnazarov: “I didn’t intend to rearrange the world while shooting “Ward No. 6”. I think, Anton Pavlovich didn’t have the intention either – he was too wise to aim at such things”.
http://www.rg.ru/2009/06/26/palata6.html
“Russian Season” in Dublin
Karina Ivashko, “Voice of Russia”, February 21, 2010
“Ward ¹ 6” attracts today's audience, in the first place, by plunging them into the most complex psychological problems of human life, in whatever century it would go by, the director Karen Shakhnazarov says confidently.
"I think that Chekhov dialogues are remarkably relevant today. “Ward ¹ 6” is a complicated, difficult thing. But there are moments when such movies must be done, as Chekhov looked into the abyss of our lives. It is not the most pleasant, but after all, it is absolutely necessary".
http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/02/21/4732734.html
Days of Russian cinema in Tunisia
Proficinema, February 10, 2010
Russian film festival will be held in three cities of Tunisia all at once. The opening will take place on March 26, 2010, in the capital of the country. That evening “Ward ¹ 6”, a film by Karen Shakhnazarov, will be presented to the audience. In all, on the festival there will be shown eight films.
On March 28 the film festival will start in the tourist town of Sousse and two days later, on March 30, in the “southern capital” ‑ the city of Sfax.
The organizers, Naas Films Society Alybuse, invited Karen Shakhnazarov and Nikolai Lebedev to participate in the festival and to conduct a master class for students of film schools.
http://www.proficinema.ru/mainnews/festival/detail.php?ID=78176
The film “Ward ¹ 6” won two awards at the film festival in Tehran
RIA Novosti, February 4, 2010
Russian film “Ward ¹ 6” by Karen Shakhnazarov won two awards at the 28th International Film Festival in Tehran.
The Film Festival was held from 23 January to 4 February. More than 80 films competed over the prize “Crystal Simorgh”.
http://www.rian.ru/culture/20100204/207741409.html
