Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: # 8. Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau

Dau

Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky
Writers: Khrzhanovsky, Susanne Marian, Vladimir Sorokin, Kora Landau-Drobantseva
Producers: Coproduction Office’s Philippe Bober, Artyom Vasilev
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Teodor Currentzis, Youriy Alekseev, Radmila Schiogoleva

Patiently, we are still awaiting to hear if this might be the lucky year for Dau to make a bow. We had the film pegged for last year’s Most Anticipated list (#5) and fair to say, if the trend disturbingly continues, we won’t hear a peep out of it for the next twelve months ahead which will only confirm that production is completely off the tracks a la Synecdoche, New York. Winner at Rotterdam in 2005 for his debut film 4, Khrzhanovsky’s artistic ambition is unmatched by any I’ve seen in a very long time (I include Cuarón’s 7-years-in-the-making Gravity) — this on-going production (used three cinematographers, four editors) took a life of its own has had thousands of extras, an entire town was rented and has stretched well beyond the norms in terms of what occurs on set.

Gist: This is a biographical film about Lev Landau – the tall and awkward-looking Soviet scientist is a man with two passions: women and physics. He lives the high life during the golden age of Soviet physics, while the rest of the country is starving. Sent to prison for openly criticizing Stalin, he find himself forced to join the team developing the Soviet thermonuclear bomb. Love, sex, intrigue and anguish intertwine with politics. Stalin’s purges, the bomb and finally the Nobel prize.

Release Date: If it finally is ready to go, Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

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