Race to vertigo: what will surprise the "Battle of Motors" with Yura Borisov and Ivan Yankovsky

The Battle of the Motors, a genre film starring Ivan Yankovsky and Yura Borisov, will be released in wide release on October 8. The plot is based on the true story of the creation of the Russo—Balt car and the journey of the crew from the Russian Empire to Monaco. At the closed secular premiere of Izvestia, we learned how the shooting took place and what the new picture turned out to be.

From St. Petersburg to Monaco

"Battle of the Motors" rushes to the Russian rental. It started at the October cinema, where the secular premiere of the film took place with the participation of the creators and actors of the project.

The action of the new film directed by Ilya Malinin takes place in 1908. Andrey Nagel, an enthusiastic car enthusiast, is watching the development of the global automotive industry and dreams that the Russian Empire could compete with it, especially German cars. It is not without difficulty that he finds like—minded people, including the talented engineer Dmitry Bondarev. Together they will make a revolution by creating the first production car in the Russian Empire.

The main challenge for cinematographers was to create retro cars that would not only look beautiful in static, but also feel confident on the move. However, in the process, it turned out that the drawings of cars of that era have not been preserved, and not so many photographs have survived to this day.

— We built the cars that participate in the race ourselves. This is a difficult task, because there are no drawings, and there are no machines in the world from which anything can be copied. There are several photos. Any change in proportions greatly affects the aesthetics of those cars — the size of the wheels is not the same, and it is already noticeable. We did 3D modeling based on photographs. I set the engineers the task of making everything as accurate as possible," Ilya Malanin, the film's director, who attended the premiere screening, told Izvestia. — This is a feat of people who have traveled more than 3 thousand kilometers in a car that is technologically similar to the modern one. But as for comfort, it was far from modern cars. These were open cars made of fairly thin steel. Now we're swearing at the bad roads, but at that time there were none at all.

To shoot the racing scenes — and there is enough action in the film — the team produced two copies of Russo-Balt and Benz cars each. In the frame are Ivan Yankovsky, Yura Borisov, Anton Rogachev and Paulina Andreeva. Stuntmen took part in some epic scenes.

— We added some moments, fires and coups, to the graph, because it simply wasn't safe. But 90% of the races are filmed live. Stuntmen worked wonders. We had Martin Ivanov on the project, who worked on James Bond, and is now filming as a stuntman for the new Batman. From time to time, the crew's heart skipped a beat when the stuntmen raced along the mountain serpentine in Montenegro, " Peter Anurov, the producer of the project, told Izvestia at the premiere.,

Yura Borisov, Ivan Yankovsky, Paulina Andreeva at the premiere of "Battle of the Motors"

The film was the first collaboration between Ivan Yankovsky and Yura Borisov — the actors had long dreamed of working together.

— This is not a picture where someone is trying to pull a blanket over themselves. It's a collective thing, like ping-pong. It's very warmly made with important elements of the soul," Ivan Yankovsky told Izvestia on the red carpet. — This film is not about cars in general, but about the friendship of our characters. And driving retro cars is a big prerogative. There weren't many cars left at that time, and it was a great success to be behind the wheel and embark on this journey with the guys.

Paulina Andreeva played Lydia in The Battle of the Motors, who is romantically involved with Andrei Nagel, the character of Ivan Yankovsky. This heroine also has a real prototype, but the artistic image, as the actress admitted, is very far from it. In the film, Lydia is visually noticeably different from other girls and women of that time — she wears short hair, elegant, but at the same time extravagant outfits. But, even more boldly, Lydia drives a car.

— My character is not typical for that time, which attracted me. She's even overly emancipated for the turn of the century, when the film is set. I like that this is not a completely lyrical heroine, she is acting, she drives a car. It was hard to remember what a manual transmission and steering wheel are without power steering when you control the car with your whole body," Andreeva told Izvestia.

Yura Borisov, who is now building a career both in Russia and abroad, refrained from commenting on the red carpet this evening. He posed for photographers with his wife and two daughters. However, when he came on stage, he still addressed the first audience.

— I played Dmitry Bondyrev, this is a real person, and his great-granddaughter Elena Vysotskaya is in the audience today. I just wanted to focus on the real people who created this story, which our movie is about," said Yura Borisov.

The film will be released in a wide release in a week. Following the Russian audience, the picture will be seen abroad. The film is already scheduled to be shown in Latin American countries.