The Underside of the Moon series carries the audience back to Soviet times, in 1979

By Tatiana Ronrena

Alexander Kott, the director of Brest Fortress, is again in the ‘trenches’, at the forefront of Russian cinematography. Currently, Alexander is in Minsk, shooting the continuation of The Underside of the Moon series. The first 12 series have been successfully shown on Russia`s First Channel.

The Underside of the Moon series carries the audience back to Soviet times, in 1979.

“We have shot and will shoot scenes of the Soviet capital in Minsk” said Alexander Tsekalo, producer of the series, at the presentation of its second part. “It’s impossible to shoot old Moscow in today’s city —  there are a lot of advertisements and renovations. Once the film crew was in a restaurant, and a girl, who lives in Minsk and often visits the café, saw us. She has asked, what we were doing, and when we have said that we were shooting Moscow of 1979, she laughed and said. ‘So you came to Minsk!’”

The same team with Alexander Kott is working on the second part.

“All actors are the former,” the director says, “the maniac ‘Ryzhi’ will also stay. The main role will again be played by Pavel Derevyanko.”

This series is not the first appeal of the director to the history of the USSR. In 2004, Kott shot Convoy PQ-17, according to Valentin Pikulya. And four years ago, Brest Fortress was released. The film won a lot of prizes and awards, including that of the Minsk’s Listapad Film Festival and the film was successfully sold to dozens of countries at the Cannes Film Festival.