Since the beginning of our collective work we have focused on the production of video films. The films are different in its aethetics and methods but what brings them all together is our attempts to develope a filmic language for different political and personal narratives - at this section you can watch the selection of web-copies of the films realised by our collective - do not hesitatate to contact us if you feel like organise a screening and discussions - our target is a production of Learning films which help to trigger discussions in relation to a big variety of urgent political issues

choose any item from the menu at the left side - here we have embedded a few new works:

New production of Chto Delat - the video film "The Russian Woods" in Russian with English subtitles

Duration 42 min

Script & Idea: Tsaplya and Dmitry Vilensky

Music: Mikhail Krutik

Choreography: Nina Gasteva

Set & graphics: Nikolay Oleynikov

The participants in performance: Irina Pavlovskaya; Polina Popova; Elena Pasynkova; Sergey Krylov; Petr Pavlensky; Svetlana Erpyleva; Maxim Kulaev

Our work on the musical performance "Russian Woods" was largely provoked by political developments in Russia last winter. By participating in these important events that all of sudden have emerged inside Russian civil society, we were intrigued by the huge amount of use of mythic images and rhetoric, both from the government and from the protesters. We found that this phenomenon is not by chance and really reflects the level of a political culture in the country. And we wanted to try to analyze it in the form of a fairy tail story that would be able to not only reflect the totality of socio-political structure of our society, but also think about the possibilities of its transformation.

The film is based on the documentation of the theatrical performance which happened in St. Petersburg on 2nd of May 2012

Film Concept and script: Vilensky Dmitry & Tsaplya (Olga Egorova); Director: Tsaplya (Olga Egorova); Composer: Mikhail Krutik; Choreography: Nina Gasteva; Graphics and Set: Nikolay Oleynikov and Dmitry Vilensky; Director of Photography: Artyom Ignatov

This film is a production of the Chto Delat? collective

ARSENALE
The First Kyiv International Biennial of Contemporary Art

This film was produced with support from the Chto Delat? Fund.

The English version of this play was staged on 25th of March in a framework of the festival "Speaking and understanding" // Episode 3 Copying without copying, concept and production by Arika (arika.org.uk)

“The Lesson on Dis-Consent“ was recorded in Baden-Baden on October 28, 2011, during the opening of the exhibition Chto Delat? at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.

Musik/Music:
Mikhail Krutik

Drehbuch/Script & concept:
Tsaplya (Olga Egorova) & Dmitry Vilensky

Regie/Director:
Tsaplya

Kostüme/Costumes:
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina) & Nikolay Oleynikov

A Film by Chto Delat?; 2011

Director: Olga Egorova (Tsaplya)
Music: Mikhail Krutik
Set: Dmitry Vilensky and Natalya Pershina (Gluklya)
Costumes: Natalya Pershina (Gluklya)
Choreography: Nina Gasteva
Script: Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) and Dmitry Vilensky


The fourth songspiel by Chto Delat? represents a similar new form of contemporary tragedy as the first three musicals of the “Songspiel-triptych”. But whereas the first three productions were based on accounts of historical events the “Museum-Songspiel” realized in a tradition of dystopia film. The script takes place against the backdrop of an imaginary scenario of Dutch politics in the year 20XX, where all immigrants have been banned from the country.

The first scene – which in contrast to all most other scenes of the film was shot on location at the Van Abbemuseum – shows a Museum’s guard who is controlling the galleries. The dramatic soundtrack accompanying the scene seems to anticipate his confusion, when stumbling upon a group of illegal immigrants, who have sought refuge in a large display case designed for street art incorporated into the museum. The museum seems to be the only institution in which they hope to be able to evade their deportation. The situation reminiscent of a (human) zoo, where one group is separated from another through a large glass wall, is finally resolved when the museum director tells the outraged journalist, that the museum never intended to hide the immigrants from the authorities in the first place, rather they were merely hired as actors for a performance.

The film raises the frightening question of which particular role the museum and therefore also art might be forced to play under political circumstances borrowed from the realities of Russian current political situation. The film is a kind of acid test on how socially concerned art might operate under severe pressure of control by nationalistic populist governments.

The work is a co-production of the Van Abbemuseum, SMART Project Space and Chto Delat?

Distribution and inquiries: SMART Project Space, Amsterdam

A film realised by the Activist Film Studio

Concept and Editing: Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat)

Production collective (research, screenplay, and direction): Extreme Views; Max Kulaev (DSPA); Pavel Arseniev, Dina Gatina, Roman Osminkin (Laboratory of Poetic Actionism); Nikolay Oleynikov, Dmitry Vilensky, Foma (Chto Delat); Oleg Zhuravliev

This film was inspired by the editing, audio and narrative techniques used by Jean-Luc Godard in his film British Sounds (1969). (It can be viewed here: vimeo.com/8118700.)

Our film is an attempt to find out whether the spirit (if not the letter) of Godard's experiments could be transferred to the suffocating reality of Russia on the eve of the 2011-2012 parliamentary and presidential elections. The film consists of a series of novellas that reflect on various aspects of politics and the life of society in today's Russia.

Godard's film was released during a boisterous, revolutionary period in British politics and society. It has been as a manifesto for a new agitational cinema that would be capable of describing the totality of social transformations in their dialectical emergence. Are we capable, at the height of political and social reaction, of critically sharing Godard's vision and aesthetics?