Sergei Selyanov chose several professional roles for himself: he writes scripts, puts on films and produces them. Of course, he achieved high results in all these fields, otherwise he would not have received more than a dozen cinematic awards and would not have been honored, according to the Expert publication, to be the only Russian producer whose name has become a brand in the field of production of feature films.
For many years, Sergei Selyanov has been managing the well-known STV film company in the Northern capital, for which he was awarded the Golden Aries Prize. The films “Brother”, “Brother-2”, “Cargo 200”, “Mongol”, “Cuckoo” produced by him became cult for the Russian audience, their popularity was simply stunning. Sergey Selyanov was pleased to collaborate with such well-known directors as Alexei Balabanov, Philip Yankovsky, Alexander Rogozhkin, Sergey Bodrov Jr. What is known about this talented person?
Facts from the biography
Sergey Selyanov is a native of the small town of Olonets, which is located in Karelia. He was born on August 21, 1955 in the family of a fighter pilot. In childhood, the boy dreamed of following in his father's footsteps and flying through the sky.
However, after a few years, his priorities in life changed: the young Selyanov Sergey Mikhailovich announced that he wanted to become a writer, and after a while, his career as a filmmaker began to attract him. The family of the future director and producer very often moved from place to place, but at the age of 13 he already knew where exactly he would go to study after school.
Student years
Having received a certificate of maturity, the young man submits documents to the Tula Polytechnic and enters this university. Here Selyanov Sergey Mikhailovich becomes the head of an amateur film studio. Great art attracted him like a magnet, and after a while the young man became a student at the VGIK scenario faculty. He was identified in the studio of the famous film director Nikolai Figurovsky. At the end of the 80s of the last century, Selyanov graduated from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters, being already a graduate of Bykov's workshop.
First movie
A test for the novice director turned out to be work on the film "Angel Day," which he put on in a duet with Nikolai Makarov in 1989.
This was a comedy drama, which was positioned by Selyanov as an independent movie, since he spent his own savings on the set. In addition, the plot of the picture was dissonant with respect to the general political course of the Country of Soviets, so the movie received the status of “underground”. In general, Sergei Selyanov, whose films are distinguished by metaphorical, allegorical content with elements of a grotesque, emphasizes that a creative person must be able to not only come up with and create a movie, but also properly organize the filming process.
Director and founder of STV
The second film of the "Karelian" director was released on Soviet screens in 1990. It was called “Spirits of the Day,” and the main role here went to the famous singer and performer Yuri Shevchuk, for whom she became a kind of new vector in her career. This work of the maestro was already legal: the film was shot on Lenfilm.
In 1992, Sergei Mikhailovich created in the "northern Palmyra" film company "STV", whose "politics" was based on the promotion and "promotion" of exclusively Russian films. At this time, he met his future colleagues "in the shop" - Alexei Balabanov, Pavel Lungin, Philip Yankovsky, Alexander Rogozhkin, senior and younger Bodrov.
Screenwriter
In 1994, Sergei Mikhailovich tries himself as a screenwriter. Together with Alexei Balabanov they wrote the drama “Castle”, which is based on the unfinished work of Franz Kafka with the same name. A year later, Selyanov directed the film “The Time of Sorrow Has Not Come”, which received the Promotional Award in Cottbus.
Producer
Sergey Selyanov is a producer of four dozen films of the art and documentary genres. He was awarded at "prestigious" domestic and foreign film festivals.
The maestro was able to prove to everyone that he had the power to promote any art house movie to the market. As already emphasized, the films produced by him always awaited overwhelming success. With Alexander Rogozhkin they made phenomenal paintings: “Features of national fishing”, “Operation“ Happy New Year! ””, “Checkpoint”.
“Cuckoo” is a film that won an audience prize in the New Cinema of Russia festival in Vologda. It was received by Sergei Mikhailovich himself. What is this movie about? “Cuckoo” is a film-story about how three absolutely diverse cultures can be in contact with each other, the carriers of which are Russian, Finn and a woman named Anna. Despite the differences in mentality and difficult life circumstances, the main characters of the film still manage to find a “common language”. This tape won the Golden Eagle Award.
Work with the films “Brother”, “Brother-2”, “Zhmurki”, “Morphine” connects Alexey Balabanov.
With Bodrov Jr., he created the cult films “Sisters” and “The Messenger”. Work on the latter, unfortunately, did not end in connection with the tragic death of the film crew of Bodrov. Sergey Selyanov received the Khanzhonkov medal as the best producer of 1995-1998.
The director is married, he has two children: daughter Daria and son Gregory.
“There are few high-quality films being shot in Russia”
Most recently, the maestro celebrated his sixtieth anniversary. Sergei Mikhailovich believes that today domestic cinema is far from showing “good” stories to the audience. On average, according to the maestro, only 2-3 “sound” films are released per year, the rest can be attributed to marriage. The film education system that dominated the Soviet era emphasized the education of the artist, while the professionalism of the directors was secondary. Now, Selyanov argues, this basic value is a thing of the past, and we need to gradually follow the path of educational reform so that scriptwriting takes much more time. According to Sergei Mikhailovich, the future of Russian cinema is talented screenwriters.