Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #70. Aleksey German Jr.’s Dovlatov

Dovlatov

Since helping to complete his father’s posthumous opus Hard to Be a God, Russian director Aleksey German Jr. revealed his third feature, Under Electric Clouds in competition at Berlin in 2015 (where it won an award for cinematography). He received funding from Eurimages to support his latest project, Dovlatov, a film which explores four days in the life of cult Russian author Sergei Dovlatov in 1971, Leningrad. Collaborating with the author’s daughter Katherine, German is interested in capturing the particular scene of early 70s Leningrad. When filming began in early 2017, German confirmed the title role would be played by a non-Russian, to be revealed after production completed. Others notables include Zvyagintsev regular Elena Lyadova and DP Lukasz Zal (of Pawlikowski’s Ida and this year’s Loving Vincent).

Release Date/Prediction: After being in post-production and supposedly scheduled for a domestic release in late 2017 (we originally pegged this for a 2017 Venice possibility), German’s Dovlatov won a slot at the Berlin Film Fest’s main comp. Up until then, his films preemed in Venice (including 2008’s Paper Soldier, which took home the Silver Lion).