One of the MORZEFISH projects of 1996 was official broadcasting of Izhevsk avant-garde movies dated to 1991-1992. That's when the first Exotica fest of art & video was held in Izhevsk. Due to this more people got to know about the phenomenon of Izhevsk music and cinema. The latter has involved the people relatively far from it. This particular circumstance apparently brought them to the point of creating their piercing ritual masterpieces narrating of what is going on at the end of the 20th century.



    MORZEFIH:  Lena, I guess at the time you were making about your movies I was strolling the streets, agitated and exulted, feeling something soaked with something mysterious being done by certain Izhevsk citizens.

    LENA NABEL:  I simply knew that they were going to hold the Exotica fest and I set about shooting a film quite spontaneously. That's the way things usually happen to me. That's how I had taken up photography and then wanted my pictures to move. That's how I took up moves. My first one was very sincere, emotional and absolutely feminine.

    MORZEFIH:  You mean a man couldn't shoot this, or similar, film?

    LENA NABEL:  Not in the least. It could be only a woman who would do this. A man couldn't express the idea. Actually men fill the same, but have quite different way of expressing it. My male fiends certainly helped me a lot, but they were in fact doing what I told them to do according my to my visions, ideas and feelings. And it's impossible to discuss the films without speaking about the city, my friends, their music. You may write a book about all these and them.

    MORZEFIH:  All musicians, artists, poets living in this city always stick together. Is this a symptom or something else? Is this a way-out, a salvation for them?

    LENA NABEL:  That's just the urbanization, the city of plants and factories their smoking chimneys. People who get up at 6am and go to their work. You don't feel - no, not your individuality - when you enter a buss, you don't feel that it's just flesh, "meat" around you. You also belong to this city, you live the same life with all of them. But there are other soul over here looking for something, willing to express themselves. You just meet them, and soon take a strong liking to them, and think of them and realize their multi - facedness and see it more distinct.

    MORZEFIH:  What do you mean by taking a strong liking to them? Is that your dissolution in the whole mass of people? Or maybe it's your ego that dissolves?... Are you afraid of this?

    LENA NABEL:  (laughs) Now my first word spoken will be "I" ... I aim at the destruction of my ego, but to destroy it completely you should probably go live in the forest like a hermit. The more people are around, the stronger it affects me. That gives me the grounds for meditation.
    I believe there have never been the phenomenon of myself, Lena Nabel. There has existed the phenomenon of Izhevsk. I was greatly surprised on hearing this from Sasha Yuminoff. Some time ago then I got feel it. Now I realize that we have lots of things to be proud of. That's great that we are proud of the way we are and the way we live here.


  Lena Nabel, a wonderful girl used to be involved in various kinds of art, now indulging in choreography. Was the first to have told us lots of interesting things lifting the veil from the timeless works of Izhevsk cinematography. Sometimes faint shades and light features say more of this ...