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The end of the summer vacations and the beginning of a new creative season for «FRESH PRODUCTION» have been marked by the long-awaited event – Ukrainian-Georgian co-production project «Ursus – Caucasian Brown Bear» has successfully passed the Ukraine`s State Film Office`s selection, won the highest appraisals, and by the decision of the Council of Experts is included in the State Funding program.
The Ukrainian side of this coproduction is represented by «FRESH PRODUCTION» and the Georgian side by «Studio O». The filming is to get started in June, 2012. It will take place in Georgia, Turkey, Germany and Ukraine. The screenplay is written by Zaza Buadze («Assassin`s love», «Umbrella Sky», «Absurdistan», «Red Lotus», «The Wall»). The brilliant cast is to shine in the movie: Cate Blanchett, Merab Ninidze and Bogdan Benyuk. The marketing support and consulting provided by Hollywood`s «The Film Finders» hopefully allows to count on successful world distribution and festival promotion.
We asked a few questions to the well-known Georgian director Otar Shamatava who is to direct «Ursus» («Turandot», «Attraction», «Fiesta», «Dear M»):
Tell us please Otar, how the idea of such an interesting story was born?
O. Sh.: The beginning of this story is pretty curious. The fact is that there was a brown bear named Chola in real Soviet life on the studio «Georgia-Film» (called so because of the similarity with the Deputy Chief Manager of the studio, or because of the Deputy Chief Manager’s order to cafeteria to feed Chola.) Eventually, in 1992-93, when all of us, not bears, found difficult to exist because of the civil war, my friends and I accidentally found out that one European Wildlife Fund was interested in the fate of our bear. Just for a joke, I proposed the idea to ask our studio wizard costume maker to create a bear costume to make me able to skip instead of Chola in Europe, away from all local madness of that times. And when I had finished my impassioned speech, I saw no joy in the eyes of those whom I was joking to, but tears and envy, maybe because it was me who generated that kind of thought, not them.
Later I told this story to Zaza Buadze, my friend, a wonderful film director and scriptwriter, who immediately caught fire of the story. Consequently the script of the film «Ursus – Caucasian brown bear» was born in 2006, which with Zaza’s assistance, got to the film company «FRESH PRODUCTION», into the hands of wonderful Ukrainian producers – Oleg Shcherbyna and Julia Cherniavska.
Prepared by Darina Goriunova, PR manager of the Fresh Production Group
