The Montreal Film Festival 2013 Prize for the Best Screenplay, to the Russian film Ivan Son of Amir. In the muslim Russia, the story weaves through two different cultures and presents a human aspect of complex human situations and relationships.

VAN SYN AMIRA / IVAN SON OF AMIR

2013, Colour, Russia, World Competition (full length movies) 

Production Team

Director : Maksim Panfilov

Screenwriter : Maksim Panfilov, Andrei Osipov

Cinematographer : Oleg Lukichev

Cast : Karolina Grushka, Bobur Yuldashev, Dmitry Dyuzhev, Andrey Merzlikin, Lola Eltaeva, Nargis Abdullaeva, Aziza Begmatova, Anastasia Smoktunovskaya, Samira Khuseynova

Film production and Sales : Andrei Osipov, Film Company Vera, Mosfilmovvskaya str. 1, Moscou (Russie), tél. et fax: +7 499 1439222, ivera2007@mail.ru

Synopsis

A Russian woman from Sevastopol flees with her two children during the Second World War. Amir, an Uzbek with two wives, gives her shelter in a remote village. The Uzbek has not gone to the front to fight, because he, as he explains, he does not like to kill people. Nevertheless, Amir believes that he is "defending the motherland" by looking after and feeding his own family along with the Russian, now his third wife, her two children and little Ivan, his new son from the Russian woman. When the war ends, the woman's husband, a lieutenant of the Black Sea fleet, who was assumed to be dead, shows up looking for his wife and children. He finds them and returns with them to Sevastopol -- his wife, the children and little Ivan. But he has difficulty accepting that his wife was third wife of a Muslim man who wouldn't fight in the war and the product of their union, Ivan, who is named after him, is now playing host to Amir's visiting family. 
 

Director

Born in Moscow in 1968, Maksim Paniflov graduated from the acting department of the Shchukin Theatre School in 1990, and in 1996 from classes in screenwriting and film direction. He has worked as a stage actor and director and, since 2004, as a film producer. IVAN SON OF AMIR marks his directorial debut in feature films.