As impressive, unique and visually exquisite as anything by Sergei Parajanov or Wojciech Has, the lustrous black-and-white world of director-writer Rustam Khamdamov will prove a revelation.
The Bottomless Bag is based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s fairytale In a Grove—the same story that inspired Akira Kurosawa’s famous Rashomon. Shooting in an abandoned palace on the bank of St. Petersburg’s Neva River, Khamdamov moves the action to Imperial Russia and the reign of Alexander II. An elegant lady-in-waiting with special magical talents (Svetlana Nemolyayeva) tells the prince a fable set in the 13th century, revolving around the mysterious murder of the Tsar’s son in a forest. The characters in the fable—witnesses to the crime—narrate different versions of the events.
A director and designer of fashion, jewelry and theatrical costumes, Khamdamov is also a visual artist and probably the only living filmmaker to have his art work displayed in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage museum.
Director Biography
Rustam Khamdamov (Tashkent, 1944) is a Russian film director, screenwriter and artist, who has created an original, metaphorical and visual film language. Winner of the Triumph prize in 1996 and of the Cultural Heritage of the Nation award. Khamdamov's work can be seen at the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, the National Museum of Ravenna (Italy) and in private collections. He is an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts.
Filmography:
In the Mountains of My Heart (1967, short) (VGIK)
Anna Karamazoff (1991), (The Cannes Festival)
Vocal Parallels (2006); (The Venice Film Festival)
Diamonds. Theft (2010, short); (The Venice Film Festival)
The Bottomless Bag (2017) (Moscow IFF 2017, Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2017, Rotterdam IFF 2018, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria IFF 2018, BAFICI 2018).