心向高地

a very AMAZING surreal short film by one of the less-known USSR filmmaker Rustam Khamdamov. based on William Saroyan's book "My Heart Is in the Highlands". Director's remarks: He studied at the VGIK in Moscow. Apart from film direction, he is a fashion designer and designer of jewels and theater costumes. Thus, his works are not only presented at film festivals but also in galleries and on fashion show stages. He made his film debut in 1967 with V gorakh moyo serdtse (My Heart Is in the Highlands). After that, he made a film Nechayannye radosti (1972), inspired by the poetics of classic Russian silent cinema, which was lost. After some time he made Anna Karamazova (1991), featuring Jeanne Moreau in the lead role, which was in the competition at Cannes. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1944, Khamdamov first came to Moscow at age 20 to study at the VGIK film institute. He graduated in 1967 with a glorious black-and-white 35-minute diploma work, "My Heart Is in the Highlands," which caught to perfection the beauty and eccentric energy of 19th-century Paris (even though he had, of course, never been there). Apparently, it even prompted the institute's Party committee to start censoring student works.