Roots

In Pavel Lounguin’s rueful black comedy, rogue small-town entrepreneur Edik conjures up a brilliant scheme to assist expatriate Russian Jews longing to reconnect with their village roots. But Edik’s seemingly noble social service is really a shady grifter’s con to separate people from their assets. Edik finds it easier (and cheaper) to cast locals as phony, long-lost relatives rather than finding the real ones. But by working with a town full of absurdly comic loose cannons with wild subplots of their own, Edik never knows what’s going to happen--and neither do we. On this wild ride, Edik is like a filmmaker working with amateur actors, and the results are just as unpredictable. Konstantin Khabensky gives a slyly deadpan, unflustered performance as the outrageously chauvinistic Edik, while veteran actress Esther Gorintin, who was so magical in Since Otar Left, Le Grand Rôle (SFJFF 2005) and Voyages (SFJFF 2000), returns to the screen with one of the most luminous faces in movies today. At last year’s Sochi International Film Festival, the world’s premier platform for new Russian cinema, Roots swept an armful of awards, including best film. Though not especially religious, acclaimed Russian director Lounguin has struggled to express his complex relationship to Judaism in almost all of his films. Taxi Blues (SFJFF 1991), Tycoon and Luna Park all wrestle with various aspects of a Jewish world view and the world’s gaze back. In Roots, he deftly mines Jewish and Russian stereotypes while mercilessly lampooning them all.

Pavel Lounguine was born in Moscow in 1949. His father is a famous scriptwriter, his mother a noted translator (who has adapted works by such illustrious writers as Nathalie Sarraute, Francois Mauriac, and Boris Vian into Russian). Following in his family tradition, Lounguine studied structural linguistics at Moscow Univesity, and also took a Degree of Higher Studies in Direction and Scriptwriting. Since 1975, Lounguine has written numberous scripts, ten of which have been brought to the screen. TAXI BLUES, which is Mr. Lounguine's first film as a director, won him the "Best Director" prize at Cannes Film Festival. In creating TAXI BLUES, which he considers his first fully realized work in film, Lounguine acknowledges the influence of key American films of the 70's which centered upon male comradry and contemporary social criticism such as Hal Ashby's THE LAST DETAIL, Jerry Schatzberg's SCARECROW, and Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Upcoming projects include LES MONTAGNES RUSSES (to be produced by MK2) and a feature film about the Mafia in the former U.S.S.R. Mr. Lounguine is married and has two children. He currently lives in Moscow.