Cannes Lions
VGNC, Brooklyn / BUSHE / 2018
Overview
Entries
Credits
Description
St Petersburg can change lives. Quite literally.
We imagined how the character's life would be different if each one of them was born in St. Petersburg instead of their hometown Rostov.
Specifically, Hamil would definitely grow up to be a coach of the synchronized swimmers' team. And his life would be filled with love, betrayal and fierce competition.
The plot of the movie is simple: a committed synchronized swimmer tries to win the championship and her coach's heart. What makes this unique is that the whole story is told from the perspective of the swimmer, who spends most of her life underwater. The camera stays beneath the surface ninety-five percent of the running time. Which means, that there is not one line of dialogue in the whole movie. And that's how you get film-festival performance from rap artist. (wink-wink).
Execution
Movie’s uniqueness is in its idea and execution - it was shot almost entirely underwater. The camera stays beneath the surface ninety-five percent of the running time. So we had to build a lot of the unique equipment from scratch. Like underwater dolly, for example.
Principal photography was done in three days. For an authentic look we casted synchronized swimming Russian royalty instead of professional actors. World Champion Anna Udovik and Olympic Champion Angelika Timanina act perform their roles with an expected grace.
Outcome
The project hit select theaters in February 2018 to an overwhelming success, selling out venues in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg.
Its online premiere was exclusive to Short of the Week - the most influential online film festival and April will see the feature on one the national TV channels. The further online release will feature all of the biggest media platforms in Russia.
At the time of this submission, the trailer earned more than 3 000 000 media impressions.
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