“THE GLASS WALL”

Three years ago my colleague had left Moscow and begin to live with her boyfriend in Sweden (Karlshamn). I made a short documentary film “Glass Wall” (5 min.) about it, and for this reason, Sweden has become the first foreign country that I visited. So I can also say that the first real meeting with Europe for me began in Swedish town of Karlshamn...

I think that cinema could be a kind of door through the invisible wall between different cultures. I use "The Glass Wall" as a verbal metaphor of this barrier, consisting of stereotypes, mentality, cultural differences, politics, etc.

"GLASS WALL" (short film) from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Performance In The Abandoned Evangelical Church

Today I found two strange video, that I made for my friends from Madrid in 2013. I guess you can call it video art. In fact it's performance that was captured.

A girl tried to explain me the essence of her performance somehow. She said that every place (space) has a special power. She tries to transmit this energy, her feeling of space through body movements and voice. Her body and voice performs the role of a mediator. It all seemed like some of the methods that psychologists use in the dance movement therapy and actors during actors' training. It looks very strange action for most part of viewers and complete surprise them as I noticed.

Her boyfriend, sound engineer, recorded sound during this perfomance and then he made sound tracks for the video that I filmed for them. Shot on a DSLR camera static shots in very low light.

They chose really interesting places . Both videos were made on Madeira. First clip was recorded at underground grotto of volcanic origin. She spent twenty minutes in the icy water. The second video was made in the abandoned Evangelical Church.

El retorno al llanto, a la madre from temporadadepesca on Vimeo.


Flores para el altar from temporadadepesca on Vimeo.

Trip across Greece 2015

3 min. video of my working trip across Greece in May 2015. What is the true reason of crisis in Greece now? Corruption and bad management in the country? Or it is a "defect" of EU management in general? Просто немного Греции.


GREECE 2015 from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Beauty And the Melancholy Of Vietnam

This video was made by me two years ago. My friends-videographers were filmed various interesting footages during a trip to Vietnam with two cameras: Mark II and Go Pro. Here I used just standard Adobe Premiere tools for video editing and colour correction.

Now I would be happy to be on the other side of this video ...

Путешествие по Вьетнаму from РЕЛТА видео on Vimeo.

Everything Is Just a Dream

The Buddhists say that life is a collective dream, an illusion, a mirage, Maya. Reality does not exist. I am just your dream, and you are just mine. Everything that happens to us is part of the dream, and only few people will wake up and understand that it was all a dream...

Video essay about Madeira island:

"ANOTHER ISLAND" (video essay) from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Trans-Siberian Railway

Video made by Stanislas Giroux. Three minutes of video for three weeks of travel, three countries, three cultures. He tooks a train ticket for the Trans-Siberian railway, in order to reach Beijing from Moscow, crossing Mongolia.

Seat 22 — Trans-Siberian Odyssey from Stanislas Giroux on Vimeo.

Muslims and Oil in Russia

This post is dedicated to Islam in Russia. Firstly, because I realized that not so many foreigners know that there are large Muslim regions in Russia. As well as a there are regions where most people are Buddhists or shamanists.

This town called Leninogorsk, which means literally - Lenin Hills. People call this place "oil town". It was built 60 years ago, because geologists have discovered large reserves of oil here. Oil pumps are everywhere in this region. Actually, it's a good object for meditation. These machines are continuously doing slow movements - up and down.

American Catholic Priest in the Russian Far East

There is the Roman Catholic Church in Magadan. I went there with my colleagues - two German filmmakers. It was cold and snowing. The church was not open. We knocked on the door.

Fifty years old man in a gray robe with a hood met us. The front of his robe was embroidered red cross. It was not even a cross, but rather a hybrid of two symbols - the cross and heart. He spoke to us in English with a clean American accent. Father Michael Shields originally from Alaska. He lives in Magadan for twenty years already.

Gold Rush in the Russian Far East

Gold mine named after Matrosov is located in the snowy wilderness (about 400 km from Magadan).

The Sea of Okhotsk オホーツク海

… but I got the biggest impression from the sea (as always). Magadan was built on the sea shore (the Sea of Okhotsk). It has an influence on the local climate: wet air, not so cold, and weather can change very quickly. It much colder outside of Magadan: up to - 50 C.

The Sea of Okhotsk (Russian: tr. Okhotskoye More) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It’s the first Russian settlement in the Far East. The Sea of Okhotsk covers 611,000 sq.mi. (1,583,000 km2). It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south, through the La Pérouse Strait. With the exception of Hokkaidō, one of the Japanese home islands, the sea is surrounded on all sides by territory administered by the Russian Federation.

The Road of Bones

So that was basic idea at the beginning of shooting process. Flight from Moscow to this place (Magadan) took about 8 hours. There is no railway connection. Also possible to drive here by car, but it very long way and road could be really dangerous sometimes.

 

Russian Far East

I was making documentary as a co-director together with two German filmmakers from Cologne’s International Film School (ifs) in Russian Far East during November 2014.

Here a treatment that was written by Christian Zipfel (director of this film) before we go to Magadan and start shooting process: