In the late 80s - early 90s of the last century, a new generation of young visionaries, sometimes without a mandatory film education, joined the ranks of Russian cinema. Among promising directors-debutants was a certified designer Debizhev Sergey. Not limited to academic postulates, he created several initial works - documentary films, boldly handling pre-revolutionary and early Soviet newsreels.
In search of a creative calling
The future director Sergey Debizhev was born at the beginning of the last summer month of 1957 in the resort town of Essentuki. The first mentor in the field of art education is Alexei Ignatievich Kabantsov, who in his work gravitated to abstractionism. Therefore, Sergei Debizhev’s craving for the vanguard is understandable.
Trying to realize himself as a creative person, driven by youthful maximalism, he leaves his native land and enters the Leningrad Art School named after V. A. Serov in the specialty of “design graphic”. Some time after graduation, a recent student taught composition at the school. Serova. And only in the mid-80s he came to the film industry, initially working as an artist in the creation of documentaries A. Sokurov.
Best among clip makers
Also Sergey Debizhev took a direct part in the design of albums for the musical groups “Aquarium” and the performer S. Kurekhin “Day of Silver”, “Equinox”.
For a certain period of his creative career, Debizhev tried his hand at video clip making, filming music videos for Russian rock musicians B. Grebenshchikov (Polar Explorers, Moscow October), Y. Shevchuk (Love). Currently, he is firmly entrenched in the status of one of the most talented and sought-after music video makers in Russia.
Director provocateur
As the director Sergey Debushev made his debut in 1989, his first works “Thirst”, “You Calm Me”, “Red on Red”, “Two-Faced Janus” caused a controversial reaction among Russian art historians. For example, The Golden Dream, a film about how nudist naturalists defeated the communists, was warmly received by the audience, but was harshly criticized in the newspaper Pravda.
Then Sergey Debizhev, whose filmography consists of projects created in an unusual form or genre policy, shoots a full-length film-parody “Two Captains-2”. Despite the fact that the project is absurd-musical, it was shot in a documentary-historical style. The film, which was released in 1992, aroused sincere interest among the audience and furious rejection of domestic film critics. It is not known for certain what exactly this project attracted the attention of the public with: a non-trivial form, an ironic-conspiracy theological plot, or the opportunity to see B. Grebenshchikov, S. Kurekhin, T. Novikov, S. Bugaev “Africa” and other famous people of the St. Petersburg underground on the screen.
In search of pure expression
In the second half of the 90s, Sergei Debizhev almost never made films. He focused on working together with Oleg Gazmanov. The artist, to put it mildly, differed from the director’s usual circle of friends - bohemian artists and Petersburg rock musicians, nevertheless, the creative tandem took place. Debizhev became the author of many music videos of Gazmanov, created in the imperial-Soviet style. For the cultural elite, this was unexpected, but Sergey Debizhev could always surprise others by boldly experimenting with the content, style and form of his work.
After the esthetician and formalist Debizhev plunged headlong into the search for pure expressiveness, backed by sufficient funding.
Traveling the world
Another discovery of the visionary and an occasion for amazement of the public was the next project of Sergei Debizhev, which had the working title "Rainy Season". The idea of the picture originated with the creator during his travels to different corners of the planet. A trip to Cambodia was the result of his wanderings and the starting point for creating the project. Ultimately, the film was called the Golden Section. Critics called the painting a combination of Da Vinci Code and the Fifth Element. In fact, the tape is a philosophical multi-level work. The director performed in this work and in the hypostasis of the scriptwriter, managing to combine in the cinema a lot of different topics and ideas that are popular in the modern world. He touched on Freemasonry, espionage themes, downshifting, glamor and everyday human life. Sergei Debizhev, wanting to achieve the most powerful impact on the audience, deliberately invited many Russian stars to the production of the tape. Among the casting of the film are Ksenia Rappoport, Alexei Serebryakov - one of the leaders of domestic distribution, public favorite Renat Litvinov, the universally recognized cinema master Mikhail Efremov and Sergey Bugaev ("Africa").
At this, Debizhev Sergey did not stop his creative delights, among his last works of authorship are the films “Russian Dream”, “The Last Knight of the Empire” and “Incandescent Chaos”.