I was inspired to make this film after the police forced me to delete video footage of the OMON raid on our seminar in Nizhny Novgorod. I was struck by their brazen confidence that they could erase things from people’s memory as easily as you can delete a video image. This film is meant as a response to their challenge. It shows that we can not only document the crimes of the authorities for posterity, but also shape our own space of interpretation. We can recreate our own histories, in which the deeds of the police will be remembered as shameful acts against society. —Dmitry Vilensky
A video film by Chto Delat music by Mikhail Krutik
Director of Partisan Sonspiel is Olga Egorova (Tsaplya), assistant directors are: Vladan Jeremić, Rena Raedle, Dmitry Vilensky; Scriptwriters and stage designers are: Vladan Jeremić, Olga Egorova Tsaplya, Rena Raedle, Dmitry Vilensky, costume design did Natalya Pershina Gluklya, choreography did Nina Gasteva and Tsaplya, editing and post-production were done by Olga Egorova Tsaplya and Dmitry Vilensky. Production was done in Belgrade by Biro Beograd - Biro for Culture and Communication Belgrade in July 2009.
Chto delat?
Wednesday, 02 August 2006 19:00
Chto delat/What is to be done? was founded in early 2003 in Petersburg by a workgroup of artists, critics, philosophers, and writers from Petersburg, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod (see full list of participants on the web site) with the goal of merging political theory, art, and activism. Since then, Chto delat has been publishing an English-Russian newspaper on issues central to engaged culture, with a special focus on the relationship between a repoliticization of Russian intellectual culture and its broader international context. These newspapers are usually produced in the context of collective initiatives such as art projects or conferences.
The group was founded in May 2003 in Petersburg in an action called The Refoundation of Petersburg .Shortly afterwards, the original, as yet nameless core group began publishing a newspaper called Chto delat/What is to be done? The name of the group derives from a novel by the Russian 19th author Nikolai Chernyshevsky, and immediately brings reminiscences of the first socialist worker's self-organizations in Russia, which Lenin actualized in his "What is to be done?" (1902). Chto delat sees itself as a self-organizing platform for cultural workers intent on politicizing their "knowledge production" through reflections and redefinitions of an engaged autonomy for cultural practice today.
