Go Conquer Rome / Idi na Rim

Credits

cast

Nikolay Karetnikov

Director

Biography

Nikolay Karetnikov was born in 1975 to a family of a Russian avant-garde composer Nikolai Nikolayevich Karetnikov (1930-1994), who belonged to an "alternative" nonconformist group in Soviet music. In spite a graduate degree in economics from Moscow State University and an Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Liverpool, Nikolay dedicated a major part of his life to visual arts and contemporary dance theatre and lately, drama. Since 2019 Nikolay involved with the Studio of Individual Directing (MIR-6), an educational initiaitve led by Boris Yukhananov, a famous Russian director of theatre, video, cinema and TV, a theatre educator and theorist. The Studio is promoting an integral approach to various art media including cinema and stage performances.

Directors Statement

This film is created as a part of MIRRIM (translating as WORLD-ROME) project that currently is in joint development by the Moscow Stanislavsky Electrotheatre and The Studio of Individual Directing (MIR), both led by Boris Yukhananov. This project is largely about the place of a man between Law and Freedom, however “Go Conquer Rome” is about Love. Love cannot be comprehended intellectually, but everyone can feel it. Words cannot fully explain it, but a song can. Human love is the highest award we can give to others, no matter if they are close to us or total strangers. This film is an attempt to find a way towards Love in a modern world full of web pages and lonely people. It is also based on my childhood memories, and I call for anyone outside of Russia to contemplate it considering the legacy of the 70 years of the soviet regime that I witnessed, full of tyranny and ideological poison, that still roots in the hearts of many Russian people. It was born as a visual response to a song inspired by Shakespeare's tragedy that Vyacheslav Sysoev and I wrote for our project and performed, or rather improvised with our friends, musicians from the Unlock Winter Wanted Orchestra; and it is also an attempt to capture the moment - to recreate, using cinematic means, the closes possible equivalent of that elusive sensation that is born in the audience during the theatrical performance.