Vagrich and the Black Square
The film is a collage, an essay and a documentary in tribute to an avant-garde artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan. Viewers are immersed in the absurd and bitterly funny universe of the artist, as scholars and friends reflect on his life, enigma and the mystique of his connection with Kazimir Malevich's famous "Black Square" - an inception point of Russian avant-garde.
Festivals & Awards
Apricot Tree International Film Festival
Yerevan, Armenia 2018
Les Rencontres Cinematographiques,
Honorary Mention
Serbere/Portbou, France/Spain 2016
FilmForum
Hamburg, Germany 2015
Odessa International Film Festival
National Program, Golden Duke Nomination
Odessa, Ukraine 2015
Press
Wall Street Journal
"In an affecting film tribute to Bakhchanyan, “Vagrich and the Black Square” (2015) made by Andrei Zagdansky (which was shown at the museum in the fall), the artist’s life and work are surveyed—though it is difficult to know when satire ends and reality begins. The artist, we are told, began his career working as a company-paper illustrator at the Kharkov Tractor Plant. Somewhere along the way, Bakhchanyan also wrote a mocking, Soviet-style narrative about his Ukrainian city, boasting that every other citizen wrote poetry; one out of five was a physicist and one out of six was a snitch".
Edward Rothstein, WSJ
Andrei Zagdansky Interview with Iryna Gordeychuk
(in Ukrainian)
Credits
Conceived, directed, edited and narrated
by Andrei Zagdansky
Cameramen: Vladimir Guyevsky, Andrei Zagdansky
Animation artists: Alexei Budovsky.Alexei Zagdansky,
Graphics design Alexei Zagdansky
Music: DakhaBrakha, J.S. Bach
Line Producer Olga Beskhmelnitsyna
Producers Gennady Kofman, Andrei Zagdansky
© 2015 AZ Films LLC & MaGiKa Film
All rights reserved.
Shooting “Vagrich and the Black Square”. Andrei Zagdansky on location in Armenia, 2012.