Interview with director of “Generation P” Victor Ginzburg

Victor Ginzburg reflects on his movie Generation P – a timetrip to the money-hungry and ruthless Russia in the early 90′s.

Novel cover

Generation P

Generation P (for Pepsi) was first published in 1999 as fiction novel by Victor Pelevin and film adaptation by director Victor Ginzburg in 2011.

Story is situated in the early 90′s, a time when post-Soviet Russia confronted spiritual emptiness and thrilled anticipation of western markets.

The protagonist, creative director Babylon Tatarsky is gliding up on the gilden career escalator. The country has just lost its ideological ground – TV is now seen as a new ruler of neo homo sovieticus.

Worshiped American brands are ready to penetrate the market, which means that someone has to promote them. This opens dozens of opportunities for gold diggers whose tools are new 3D rendering techniques, creative drugs and cynical expressions.

Victor Ginzburg’s reflects on the film at Pöff festival

This movie was personal reflection on the book – in Russia often referred as “avtorskoje kino”). I always dreamed to work without dictation and censorship. This was almos like a narcism.

The director sees the story as one of the most important contemporary novels about Russia. Despide this Ginzburg confronted some difficulties in selling the idea. Most people saw that the film was either with little economical potential or too hard to make. Which is of course a bit of ironic, concerning what the movie is about.

We also did not get many awards. For instance in Poland we only got award called “sympathy from the audience”. But I really appreciated it, even though I see movie as mass cultural element.

Doing a film is a bit hard in Russia, since there is basically two genres: festival kino (art house) that does not get many screenings and pseudo-hollywood “block busters” that generates money – even though there is not even smell of block busters around. I think that my movie in neither of them, and I’m really glad that it is like that.