Could you discuss some specific instances during the course of making the film in which Naiman’s choices differ from yours?

Speaking with Naiman when Filming
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR/FILMMAKER

The fact that it took me a while to start answering this question is a good sign. It indicates that we rarely experienced a wide gulf between our choices. His initial outline was quite sketchy and abstract in itself, but strangely when the film was complete, we both agreed that the images in the film corresponded rather closely to this abstract outline.

Naiman felt strongly about shortening two episodes: one I changed, and one I didn’t. I ended up thinking he was right about both. Naiman, however, had a strong vision for the film, and we both agreed that if he were director it would be a very different film. Given this strong vision, I found him quite open and willing to accepting ideas that diverged from his own.

You often generously use “we”/“our” when discussing this film. Who does the “we” refer to?

This film is very much a team effort; a number of people were required to constrain some of my wilder ideas and concepts. The synopsis was written by Anatoly Naiman: he outlined the visual and historical materials at the core of the film, narrated it with his comments and memories about the Akhmatova he knew, and recited some of her poems which we hear throughout the film. I was fortunate to hear — and work with — someone’s personal recollections of Akhmatova from half a century ago.

Alexander Zhukov, through the unwavering commitment and the support of his foundation, made this film possible. David Nelson, a distinguished American sound designer helped to define the audio score. His decisions were at times shocking but contributed immensely to the film in our attempts to replicate the complex and multilayered space of sounds, the mystical noise, preceding words and their meanings. The camera work of Juli Olshvang and Sergei Maltsev, the visual details they brought into the story emphasized the contrast between the accessible, brisk Present and the foreign Past captured by the old cameras. I edited the footage with Adelaide Papazoglou, who is also a scholar of Greek heritage, and whose advice I valued in keeping the film aligned to the rules of ancient tragedy. She mastered basic conversational Russian in the course of the year we worked on the film. The first phrase she learned, was “Where on Earth are you?!” — addressed to one or the other child of mine, (three altogether), whom I was parenting mostly on the phone during the editing period. It was the superb English translations of Margo Rosen, creative and precise work of the American producer Darya Zhuk and consultant/ editor Dmitry Rosin I also think of, when I say “we” in regards to this film.

Do you consider your film Russian or American?

I don’t know, as I haven’t thought about it in those terms. I was trying to tell a story about a poet as a metaphysical witness, someone who names things by their names, whose account of his/her time — however different from others — outlives historians and transcends human generations and national boundaries. This story is universal, but Anna Akhmatova who lived through the dramatic events of the twentieth century in Russia, represents the quintessential example of such a poet.

Russians see the film differently, as compared to “Westerners,” as I learned from talking to audience members at the film’s screenings. In general, I observe that people expect their prior knowledge to be confirmed, rather than face something different. I speak from my own experience — it is often unnerving to hear a well-known tale presented in a different way, order or style. Therefore, informed people often ask why I didn’t include this or that important episode from Akhmatova’s life into the film, or, for that matter, why Anatoly Naiman is the only narrator. In America and Europe, unless the audience is academic (or elite), Akhmatova is relatively unknown, and viewers tend to see the film as a glimpse into the epoch — to which I do not object.