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MY DEAR FISH

by Taya Zubova

What is the film about

As I see it, the film is about Hope. It is about our unique walk in life, a path that has to be gone through in order to reach the next frontier. It is about faith in relationships between men and women. About meaning of  life that everyone can find for themselves: someone in children, someone in the beloved, and someone in bringing their undertakings to a conclusion.
‘This is a very touching, emotional story inspired by love to children and rooted in family values. The protagonists ought to learn how to cope with difficulties and move on
with their lives, and we’ll walk this path along with them’.
P. Nash

The aim of the film is to provoke the viewer to think about choice of their own path, which no one but them is in control of.

Why Our Project Matters

Because despite of the overwhelming numbers of unhappy marriages, divorces and single parent families, there are still couples who are strong enough to come through hardships of life together and support one another at the most difficult of times. Every one of us comes to and leaves this world alone, solely responsible for their choices, and yet those couples who day by day nurture happiness in their homes, become our role model. Our film tells about such people and about hope that there will be more families like that.
Above that, by our approach to film production we want to show that one who has strong belief in his work, and who is heading for the result with confidence and courage will eventually succeed achieving a dream.

About director

My name is Taya. I am the director.
Eighteen months ago, somewhere in the deepest corners of my subconsciousness, I heard a voice whispering: ‘I want to make flims’. By that time I had already had an eight-year experience of shooting PR, marketing, and advertisement videos. There were a few documentaries as well but all of them were made for clients – big and small companies. However, there hadn't yet been a chance to creat something personal, a project that would be based on non-material values, shared by my closest people. So, the intention appeared and we started working on its implementation.

Fund-raising and crowdsoursing

Currently, there is no such a thing as government financial support for short films in Russia, so we made our mind to shoot the film at our own expense. Given that we have no rich parents or useful connections in the world of cinema whatsoever, we had to work hard, really-really hard to raise the money we needed to make our dream come true. Besides, we made a call for professionals to get them into our crew.
This appeal helped us to get Marton Vizkelety, a DOP from Hungary. He read the script and saw our previous projects and came over. It was for two months that he was shooting for us putting off all of his European commercial projects.
On the next stage Anita Andreis from Croatia became our film composer and made original soundtrack.
The main female protagonist Marina is played by Anna Karmakova, a star of the Russian version of Sounds of Music musical. She came to the casting being nine months pregnant, and we immediately and irreversibly fell for her. For the first shooting session in Crimea, she came with her husband, actor Valery Pankov, and a one month old baby. They left the whole crew mesmerized with their family. Valera is definitely the best father in the world! As for Anna, her acting talent is so indescribably huge, she was born to be a film actress!

 

Fast, we grew into a close-knit team, where everyone worked days and nights neglecting themselves and any material compensation. There are no words to say how deeply we appreciate their devotion and faith in the common goal that has been driving our project.

Shooting

So, supported and energized by these amazing people, we went down to shooting. Almost every day I would update my facebook profile reporting on the events in real time, which got many people to share their advice, contacts, and thoughts to help us get the dream filmed. Thank you all!
A lot of adventures were on our way in Crimea, where we had to camp wild.
As well as at our outdoor shooting in Moscow, where we had to put a cherry picker truck in the middle of a lake to setup lighting.
And during bare hand construction of the studio stage in the localities near Moscow.
Working with small children in the interior challenged all our pedagogic skills.

 

Whereas our patience was challenged in the course of underwater shooting. 
The last challenge appeared to be our final shooting with kids.
Post-production
During the production process we have been marked as the most successful crowd-funding project in Russia. Our funding has been facilitated by more than 600 people.
In April 2015 we luckily carried out a private screening of the film in the cinema, where we could finally express huge gratitude to our crowd-founders
Once I read that if one wishes to use the language of cinema to speak one's mind to the world, then there would be no other way than absolute sincerity with no indulgence. We shoot as many doubles as necessary to make every single thing in the shot work for the story. The movement of camera, lighting, acting, color composition - everything has to be fair and has to bring sense of the cinematic sentence.
We do believe that everyone has the power to create brightening the world around.
The way we have chosen to express ourselves is through the cinema. And we gladly welcome You to join this fascinating world.
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