by Anastasia Ordinyan
[REGNUM] The Second International Documentary Film Festival “RT.Doc: Time of Heroes” will open with the premiere of Klim Poplavsky’s film “Military Correspondents-3: He Prays in the Language of God.” The show will take place in Moscow on February 23 in the Digital Business Space.
The son of Russian actress Yana Poplavskaya and director Sergei Ginzburg voluntarily went to the Northern Military District zone in 2022. Since then, he has filmed more than one project about military operations and civilians at the front. In an interview with IA Regnum, Klim spoke about the work of a military documentarian, the choice of the main character for his film and shared his opinion about those who fear the front like fire.
IA Regnum: Klim, what qualities should a military documentarian have?
Klim Poplavsky: Any person at the front must be professionally prepared for the conditions. First of all, he needs good physical training and excellent endurance. At a minimum, a person must be able to run for a long time and quickly.
Military documentarians and military correspondents are always close to professional and well-trained military personnel. You cannot differ in your knowledge, skills, general understanding of the situation, in your physics from a professional military man. When you arrived where the fighting was taking place, you already identified yourself as a military man.
Neither the enemy nor your life will spare you. She won’t say: these are military men, I hit them with a shell or a bullet, but these are fellow correspondents and documentarians, they are very nice people - you don’t need to shoot at them. This doesn't happen. That is, you get into the general mix and get the first number in the same way as a warrior.
IA Regnum: Do you have such training?
Klim Poplavsky: Yes, of course. Anyone who goes there should take care of quality preparation. When I realized that my life was divided into before and after, that my life meant making non-feature films, this led me to take all the necessary courses and visit all the necessary specialists.
In addition, he took the time to do everything necessary in terms of preparing equipment and obtaining additional information. And I continue to improve my knowledge. Every day, in any free time, I engage in self-development regarding military field affairs, medical care, and more.
IA Regnum: How often does this knowledge come in handy on the battlefield?
Klim Poplavsky: Thanks to them, I have been alive for a long time. And also the people nearby and the wounded who came under my hands are alive. So the instructors who gave me this knowledge and skills should not be ashamed of me. But my films will answer such questions better and in more detail.
IA Regnum: How do soldiers feel about military documentarians and military correspondents on the battlefield? Isn't it considered a nuisance?
Klim Poplavsky: War correspondents and documentarians have different degrees of presence on the battlefield and different methods of filming. I am with the fighter guys for a very long time, and the military correspondents come, film the story and come back. During the time spent on the battlefield side by side, the military gets used to the fact that I am there, that I don’t interfere, they get used to the fact that I do the same thing with them.
Firstly, the fact that I am not in the way is already a help, because there are enough people who are a hindrance at the front. Secondly, the presence of a camera improves the morale of soldiers. They understand that they are remembered, thought about, and seen. The guys realize that they are not doing all this in vain, they are not abandoned or forgotten. That is, the people for whose sake the soldiers perform the feat see all this.
IA Regnum: The hero of your new film is military correspondent Sargon Khadaya, where is he from, what is his nationality?
Klim Poplavsky: Sargon is a native of Syria, but his nationality is Aramean, that is, exactly the same as that of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can say that Hadaiah is a fellow countryman of Jesus. Our hero is bilingual, that is, a person who speaks Russian and Arabic absolutely perfectly, he easily switches between them.
Since he is the son of two houses - Russia and Syria, it is very interesting to watch how he instantly and sometimes completely spontaneously switches between languages, records broadcasts and stories. It’s curious how he thinks; it never became clear to me which language he thinks in more, Arabic or Russian. The film, of course, answers the question of who his parents are and other details of his life.
IA Regnum: Why did you choose such a character?
Klim Poplavsky: It was interesting for me to observe a native speaker of a non-Russian language. Watch a hero broadcast to the world the situation not in the Middle East, although he himself was a participant in the Syrian confrontation. Talk about how he shows the conflict in his second home.
IA Regnum: Previously, you shot feature films, but then you changed the direction of filming and also went to the Northern Military District zone. What was the catalyst for this action?
Klim Poplavsky: Lack of documentaries at the front. There is an acute shortage of professional people who know how to make such films. And it’s a direct necessity, because our children and grandchildren will watch it, like the films that the documentary filmmakers of the Great Patriotic War gave us.
Many of those who filmed then remained with a camera in their hands on the battlefield, so that we remember and understand what fascism is. This was the fight of our grandfathers. And now we must leave for future generations not paper and letters that can be rewritten, but frames that cannot be changed. All so that there are no questions: who, how and why?
IA Regnum: Do you still remember any moments from life on the field that you will never forget?
Klim Poplavsky: I will never forget every moment spent on the front line.
IA Regnum: What can you say to young guys who avoid the front out of fear?
Klim Poplavsky: I think that it is better for them to fear the time when there will be a day of new victory, to which they will not be involved. I think that they should be afraid of a world in which there will be new heroes who forged this victory and created a new world, to which people who were stupidly afraid of the front are now stupidly uninvolved. They should be afraid that in the future they will find themselves left behind a great nation, a great homeland, a great victory. It's scary to not be involved.
Details of the program of the Second International Documentary Film Festival “RT.Doc: Time of Heroes” and registration on the website