Alan Diambekov: "Russian cinema tries to save as much money as possible on stuntmen, they earn very little"

Interview by Oleg Kusov. Exclusively for VK

 Interesting interlocutors are always welcome at "Vestnik Kavkaza." Oleg Kusov gives all his guests in the studio a chance to speak their minds. They talk not only about the Caucasus. A half-hour conversation over tea flies quickly. "Take My Word" offers video and audio recordings of conversations and publishes them as texts.

- Our guest today is an actor, stuntman, stunt coordinator and martial artist Alan Diambekov. Hi Alan! 

- Hi!
- Alan, I believe people often ask you how you feel about actors performing some of the tricks themselves. I, on the other hand, am interested in a different question: why do they want to do them? They have one profession, you have another one...
- I am O.K. with it but only to a point. As a rule, these are young men and women. If they play a superhero who fights, jumps around, gallops horses, fences, of course, they want to perform all of it themselves. Their adrenaline is boiling, but they are given only some words that they have to perform, demonstrate with their mouth. So I perfectly understand young men who attempt to fence, etc. But if you are a professional, you should mind your own business. For example, in American cinema many artists are professionals in martial arts and do something else well. Nevertheless, producers and directors do not allow them to do it on set. Why? Because if in a big-budget project, God forbid, something happens with the artist! For example, half the work has already been done on the movie, it is almost ready. The time comes when he has to fall down from a table. He falls off the table, breaks his hand and the whole picture stops. Money is wasted, people are fired. In Russia there is a big disadvantage: people do it because they want to save money on stuntmen. Stuntmen in Russia are paid very little. I do not know why, one has to fight against it,  do something about it. We are trying to do something in this direction with the vice-president of the guild of stuntmen, Varya Nikitina, because it cannot go on like this, everyone is talking about it. 
- Are there any other organizations in addition to the guild which can pose this question to the government? 
- The guild is the main authority, so to speak, among the stuntmen. Varya is a very pushy, efficient person. We have high hopes for her. Sometimes it feels very unfair. Sometimes animals are hired for movies. Roughly speaking, a day on the stage for a parrot is worth 15-20 thousand, and a stuntman gets only 7000. 
- Are you talking about rubles? 
- Yes, I'm talking about rubles. Stunt work is also estimated at a certain level. For example, a fall from a horse costs 10,000. A fall from a horse and a parrot, do you sense the difference? A parrot earns 20,000, a man falls from his horse and gets 10,000. 
- What does it tell people? That they should become parrots? 
- Looks like it, because I cannot find any other explanation. This approach has to be revised. I'll give you a simple example. A famous film director Sergei Ursulyak is now filming a 12-episode remake of "Quiet Flows the Don" in Veshinskaya village. There was a lot of talk about this project. Everyone was trying to get in it, it is an expensive, good project.
- Are all the actors Russian? 
- All the actors are Russian. I do not want my story to appear negative, I will just tell you how it was. There was an order for 80 horses. They wanted to film an attack. I came first and talked to a stunt manager, Gennady Makoev, then I spoke with another stunt director, Yevgeny Artemovich Bogorodsky. First there was one sum, then there was a very different one. I left for the place itself. A third sum appeared. Everyone told me that they had a fight with the director, because they wanted to do many things, but the budget was being trimmed. As a result, they told me: "We want to make a better film than Gerasimov did." I said: "You can do anything, but you will not make a film better than Gerasimov." It has been proven a long time ago that if there is a classic, if it is in the heads of the audience, there will be nothing better.
- Let them try to write better than Sholokhov. 
-Of course. They told me that the scene should be the following: 80 horses are riding on the redoubt. I said: "Guys, how many trick horses?" They say: "Ten, and the rest are from the local kolkhoz, from somewhere nearby. I say: "First of all, not every horse can jump through the redoubt." Many people know what a redoubt is. It is not a trench, horses jump down from above. A stunt horse will jump, but an ordinary one won't. They will be all together, perhaps half of them will do the jump, but in the first line I have stuntmen that fall, and machine guns are fired at them, which do sweeps. I asked them: "How many ambulances do you have on stage?" They told me one. I said: "You need at least five, because first of all people will fall badly. Secondly, people will be injured. You can't hire them for pennies." There are many disadvantages. The delivery of horses is not covered, there is strange housing, you have to bring horses on your own, travel 1200 km. It costs 32 rubles per km to rent transportation nowadays in Russia. I have to pay with my own money for a return trip. At the same time, at first they talked about one sum and then they lowered it to $100 a day for the rider and the horse. It is a spit in the direction of stuntmen. Then they cut the number of horses to 40 and in the end decided to add them somehow by digital technologies. It's their business, maybe they'll manage. But I'm going back to the fact that the work of stuntmen is not appreciated to the extent it has to be. They are dedicated people who love their profession and work without rest.
- It is important for Ursulyak not to think that we are criticizing him but trying to address a problem. 
- I do not want to criticize him at all. Ursulyak is a wonderful director, I love him very much. The problem is not with him. The problem is with something else, with something inner. With the funding regime and the system. They are trying to grub something here, something there, and when you grub something, it is impossible to make the beautiful product, which it ought to be. How do they do it in America? You are given money, and you have to do everything within this framework - not a single dollar can be spent on the side. And the way it happens here... I don't even know everything. I can talk only about things that burden me, but I do not know many things. If I knew them, then I would probably be speechless.