We speak to writer, director and editor, Kirill Sokolov, on deconstructing and rebuilding genre in his
latest movie, Why Don't You Just Die! WORDS ANTON BITELAPARTMENT OATER
who are movie fans, who watch a lot of
movies, can get more fun from Why Don’t You
Just Die! than regular people who, you know,
are not very good with movies.”
Sokolov’s influences for the film were
diverse: obviously Quentin Tarantino and
Sergio Leone, but also Park Chan-wook (“I’m
crazy about him”) and Korean filmmakers in
general for the way that “they mix genres,
and in one moment, you laugh, in the next
moment you care, and in the next moment you
feel some kind of romantic passion, and you
are happy at the end of the movie because
you went through that whole spectrum of
emotions”. He was also inspired by Martin
McDonagh (“his drama and his scripts, and
his sense of humour and irony, how he mixes
dark situations and characters, and puts itW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^017
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Why Don’t You Just Die!element appears, and you start to see this
simple situation from an absolutely different
point of view, and we can jump from one
genre to another, to switch the emotions of the
viewer and try to manipulate them.”
As the shoot was not sequential, the
immense damage done to the apartment set
over the course of the film’s story created
unique continuity challenges. “Because of
the actors’ schedules,” Sokolov explains, “we
couldn’t make it in order, so we had to rebuild
it and then destroy it and then rebuild it again.
You know, put [in] a lot of blood, then wash
the blood, then put the blood [in] again, and it
was crazy, absolutely crazy.”
Although Why Don’t You Just Die! has
become a darling of the festival circuit and
an international success, at first Sokolov had
trouble getting the film seen in his native
Russia. “When we finished the movie,” he
says, “we didn’t have enough money to
promote it, and in Russia it has a different
title – to translate it closely, it’s something like
‘Die, dad!’, but in a rather rude way, so it was
a provocative title, and because of this and
the amount of blood in the trailer and on the
poster, we couldn’t post any information onFacebook, or Russian social networks, and
we were banned on Instagram and Twitter.
Then the managers of the cinemas didn’t put
our posters up in their halls, and then TV
didn’t take up our commercials, because of
the title and all the blood. We had so many
problems with promotion that it was a small
release in Russia for a short period of time.
From that moment I thought ‘okay, my career’s
finished’ [laughs] and had to think about what
I should do next, but then the world’s festivals
happened, and some people started to talk
about it, write about it, and now I’m in pre-
production with my next movie, so the end of
the story is okay, but when it was released in
Russia I was in deep sh..., to tell the truth.”
That next movie – working title No Looking
Back – is “a story about three women, three
generations of women from one family. They
struggle with each other, and this struggle
leads to a huge chase. It’s a kind of a road
movie with a big chase, so something like that
with a lot of shooting, corrupted cops,” and, of
course, “some amount of blood in there.”Why Don’t You Just Die! is in UK cinemas from
10 April through Arrow Films.WE WERE
BANNED ON
TWITTER...
KIRILL S OKOLOVW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^017
HOT NEWS
Why Don’t You Just Die!element appears, and you start to see this
simple situation from an absolutely different
point of view, and we can jump from one
genre to another, to switch the emotions of the
viewer and try to manipulate them.”
As the shoot was not sequential, the
immense damage done to the apartment set
over the course of the film’s story created
unique continuity challenges. “Because of
the actors’ schedules,” Sokolov explains, “we
couldn’t make it in order, so we had to rebuild
it and then destroy it and then rebuild it again.
You know, put [in] a lot of blood, then wash
the blood, then put the blood [in] again, and it
was crazy, absolutely crazy.”
Although Why Don’t You Just Die! has
become a darling of the festival circuit and
an international success, at first Sokolov had
trouble getting the film seen in his native
Russia. “When we finished the movie,” he
says, “we didn’t have enough money to
promote it, and in Russia it has a different
title – to translate it closely, it’s something like
‘Die, dad!’, but in a rather rude way, so it was
a provocative title, and because of this and
the amount of blood in the trailer and on the
poster, we couldn’t post any information onFacebook, or Russian social networks, and
we were banned on Instagram and Twitter.
Then the managers of the cinemas didn’t put
our posters up in their halls, and then TV
didn’t take up our commercials, because of
the title and all the blood. We had so many
problems with promotion that it was a small
release in Russia for a short period of time.
From that moment I thought ‘okay, my career’s
finished’ [laughs] and had to think about what
I should do next, but then the world’s festivals
happened, and some people started to talk
about it, write about it, and now I’m in pre-
production with my next movie, so the end of
the story is okay, but when it was released in
Russia I was in deep sh..., to tell the truth.”
That next movie – working title No Looking
Back – is “a story about three women, three
generations of women from one family. They
struggle with each other, and this struggle
leads to a huge chase. It’s a kind of a road
movie with a big chase, so something like that
with a lot of shooting, corrupted cops,” and, of
course, “some amount of blood in there.”Why Don’t You Just Die! is in UK cinemas from
10 April through Arrow Films.WE WERE
BANNED ON
TWITTER...
KIRILL S OKOLOV