Balagov announces shooting of a film about Circassian Diaspora in New York

Kantemir Balagov, the film director from Kabardino-Balkaria, who left Russia, decided to transfer the action of his new film about the Circassians from Nalchik to New York.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on March 6, film director Kantemir Balagov from Nalchik announced that he had left Russia in connection with the situation in Ukraine.

Kantemir Balagov decided to move the action of his new film “Monica” from Nalchik to New York and began to rewrite the script. In the new version of the script, the plot of the film will be built around the Circassian Diaspora in the state of New Jersey. The film director himself is now in the United States. He got an O-1B visa, which is usually issued to people who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in the arts. Alexander Rodnyansky, who also left Russia, will be a producer of the film “Monica”, the “Lenta.ru” reports today.

Kantemir Balagov explained that he had to fly to Istanbul and Georgia before heading to the US. “It’s still hard for us. Our family is still there. But we thought it would be better for us to be here than to go to jail in Russia because of our opinion about [the special military operation],” Kantemir Balagov said as quoted by the “Lenta.ru”.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 20, 2022 at 05:46 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.