Oscar Qualifying Run of Award-Winning Feature Doc ‘Oleg’ at Regency Agoura Hills Stadium 8 — Nov. 4 - Nov. 10
Interview with the Director Nadia Tass
OLEG, an award-winning documentary feature about the quest for freedom by a famous Soviet Russian cinema heartthrob Oleg Vidov, from award-winning Australian director Nadia Tass. Produced by Joan Borsten, the doc’s narration is provided by Emmy-Award winner Brian Cox (‘Succession’) and Russian-born actor Costa Ronin (‘Homeland’, ‘The Americans’).
Oleg will have an exclusive week-long FYC award-qualifying run at the Regency Agoura Hills Stadium 8 cinema from November 4 to November 10. For tickets and screening times: https://bit.ly/OlegFYCTix.
Trailer Link: https://bit.ly/OlegTrailer
Official Movie Site: www.olegvidovfilm.com
‘Oleg: The Oleg Vidov Story’ premiered in April 2021 at the Moscow International Film Festival, the spiritual home of this great actor, once called the Robert Redford of the USSR. The 95-minute documentary which memorializes his rise to fame, his ill-fated marriage into the inner circles of the Brezhnev family, and his desperate escape to the West by illegally crossing a border was directed by Nadia Tass and produced by Joan Borsten.
The producer Joan Borsten, Oleg’s widow, once a prominent American journalist who reported for the Los Angeles Times and the Jerusalem Post before becoming a producer, spent almost three years bringing this intense documentary to the screen.
Directed by Nadia Tass, one of Australia’s most prominent directors (Amy, Malcolm, Matching Jack) who also served as executive producer and about whom Joan says,
I chose Nadia Tass to direct not only because she has helmed so many award-winning films, or because she knew Oleg personally but because she had one foot in each world; her own grandparents escaped from the Bolshevik Revolution to Greece and raised her reciting Russian poetry and acting out Russian plays. These factors gave her the sensitivity to carve out of Oleg’s big life a compelling story about one man’s search for freedom.
And in fact, neither the USSR nor Russia were enigmas to any of the key team I assembled to make the documentary. For none of them was there a massive learning curve when it came to an inscrutable country which threatened western civilization for 70 years and then unexpectedly collapsed. Italy’s Andrea Guerra (‘Hotel Rwanda’) who composed the original music, the editor, Leonard Feinstein (‘Darfur Now’), and the writer/editor, the late Cory Taylor(‘JFK: A President Betrayed’) all share some connection to Russia, as do the narrator Brian Cox and Costa Ronin, the voice of Oleg.
Interviewing Nadia Tass in Melbourne, Australia gives insight into this doc as well as into her own directing methods which were honed in the newest fashion as she shot long distance using the latest technology during the time of COVID.
You have directed 18 projects (film, TV movies and one short) since your breakout film Malcolm in 1986 but never before a documentary. How was it shooting a doc?
I started a American doc about water called Bottle This. We are still working on it but when the producer’s husband fell ill, we put it on hold. But really my first doc was Oleg.
It is quite different creating the narrative but it was very exciting because the material for the narrative as already there. We had interviewed many people around the world from so many different cultures. It was like fitting pieces of a puzzle together.
The actual techniques and my sense of narrative and visual storytelling that I have developed over the years were quite useful.
Very visually exciting was the shot of the car at the Yugoslavian border.
The difficulty was COVID. For instance, I could not actually go to the Yugoslavian border to shoot. It was really tough to be in Australia, working in my room during lockdown. I had to rely on technology, playmaker, Zoom, Skype to communicate with my crew in Slovenia.
Even the casting, wardrobe and of course looking at the footage was reliant on technology. In interviews online, I found crew in appropriate countries.
I had three cameras going at the same time and three screens around me plus Skype to stay close to the first assistant director who was there. It was very complicated. COVID has truncated so many areas and also has opened up other channels of communication.
Having worked as a director for a long time however, I was able to use that knowledge and that is what is in the film.
How was it working the the producer, Joan Borsten?
I would cross the world to work wth her again. She was such a leader and at the same time a great collaborator.
Were you drawn to this project because of Oleg?
Partially the privilege of knowing Oleg attracted me to it, but also I was drawn to the human being being so persecuted.
Can you speak more about your connection to the man, Oleg himself?
Historically our heritage is Russian. Part of my father’s side was from Russia and I always wanted to be connected but it was very, very far away. The connective tissue between me and Oleg was art and culture. As a very young child I wanted to direct and to know about theater, TV and movies, how to communicate through them. The visual arts also always attracted me. That was a part of my heritage. Oleg and I, and sometimes Joan when when she was around, would talk about our mutual love for the Russian culture and I am still so grateful for our being connected by that.
And today?
I am appalled absolutely appalled with the system there and the way that system treats people in Russia. It is the very thing that drove Oleg out of there. It hasn’t changed. Putin is yet another autocrat who with his megalomania has become completely evil. Oleg had to escape for his life because of the poltical system.
I would love to see the world supporting Ukraine and to put an end to this megalomaniac’s actions destroying so many peoples’ lives.
Would you work on a doc again?
Absolutely! I need to choose carefully. I must be in love with the iea. Like with Bottle This, I fell in love with water. It is a right of every human being to have water, and there are so many people who are deprived of this rights. I feel really passionate in my connection to that!
I notice in IMDb that since 2020 you seem to have a lot of films going, starting with the short Isolation Restaurant, going on to Oleg and now The Amazing Mr. Z and Feather.
Yes, and I have just been offered a film in Norway — and I don’t even have to go there. Technology avails me of it. In Italy, The Curfew is in pre pre-production and will shoot in the spring.
David Parker, my partner in Cascade here in Australia and I have three project we are now lining up.
I am also meeting on theater again (my big passion)…two plays, written in America that i am very passionate about are waiting on scheduling. Theater has just come back in the last four months and there is a backlog.
I love waking up to a full day of talking, negotiating, developing and planning projects!
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Celebrated as one of the Soviet Union’s biggest movie stars, no amount of fame could save Oleg Vidov from a system that tried to control his life. Born in Moscow during World War II, the film traces Oleg’s spectacular rise to stardom in the USSR and his three decades in Hollywood as an actor and producer following his defection from the Soviet Union. The film also documents the hidden side of the prolific Soviet film industry and gives a rare, first-hand look at the privilege and corruption of the Soviet Communist regime.
Oleg managed to escape to the west in 1985, receiving immediate political asylum from the US Embassy in Rome. Once in Hollywood, Oleg turned to reinventing himself. He continued his film career starring in such films as Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wild Orchid with Mickey Rourke and Thirteen Days with Kevin Costner. Sadly, Oleg passed unexpectedly in May 2017.
To read more about Joan Borsten and Oleg Vidov, click here.
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