Dmitry Shadrin – (born October 6, 1973, in Gorky) Russian film director, photographer, actor, producer, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor, stuntman, and stunt and fight-scene coordinator. One of the historians of world cinema, applying that study to the making of his own films.
History
Dmitry Vasilyevich Shadrin was born into a family where his mother was a seamstress and his father a fitter-assembler. In 1979 Dima was deeply impressed by the Indian film "Raja Jaani" directed by Mohan Segal, starring Dharmendra and Hema Malini. This event became a turning point in Dima's life. While still at school, he would watch the same films with his favorite actors over and over — among them Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty. Alongside the Indian film heroes stood Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon, Louis de Funès and Pierre Richard, while Gojko Mitić, the "chief" of all the on-screen Indians, was a role model. When in the late 1980s the Iron Curtain lifted slightly in Russia, the whole world had long known Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan, but for Dmitry and his friends their famous names were only just being discovered.
A little later he and his friends had already enrolled in local karate and hand-to-hand combat clubs. Martial arts training intersected closely with cinema. Later, while working at a construction company, Dmitry did not abandon his training or his passion for film. At the same time he continued to study cinema from the inside — acting, camera work, editing, and the specifics of fight scenes and stunts. Watching film after film, hundreds of times over, Dmitry kept noticing and discovering something new and interesting. He watched Russian, Western and Eastern cinema, compared their "film schools," and weighed the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Film career
In 2000, after Jackie Chan's visit to Russia, Dmitry founded the city's first Grotesque Film Group at School No. 9. Dmitry was convinced that with an original and disciplined approach, excellent results were achievable. By the spring of 2001 the young stuntmen had begun shooting their first one-minute video clip. Soon after, the first documentary about the stunt group's work appeared, "Grotesque – This Is How the Legend Began." In May 2005 a 60-minute film titled "Squishy" (Khlyupik) was released, in which the young stuntmen set out to display all their theoretical and practical abilities. In the summer of 2006 filming began on the first full-length feature, "+20, -35 Degrees, 100% Precipitation." The film was made for the world market and required no translation or dubbing — this comedy of situations contained not a single word.
In April 2009 the All-Russian Youth Film Festival POSITIVE, Minus 1 was held. The local press later wrote: "The POSITIVE Minus One festival went off at an A-minus, with sustained applause and high hopes for the future." Dmitry produced the film comedy "Love by Certificate" and the youth comedy "Hokhmachi," and took part in events dedicated to film and photography. In 2015 the eccentric comedy "Operation New Year in Reverse" was released, and a wide release of the adventure erotic thriller "The Stranger" was planned. He currently runs masterclasses in filmmaking and promotes his own system of stunt-film training.
Personal style
Through his study of cinema, Dmitry developed his own style, combining martial arts, ideas that stir the greater mass of humanity, the aesthetics of the human body, and the vivid colors of Eastern flavor. His work in photography further helped him grasp the visual essence of the direction he wanted in film. His films invited reflection while also aiming to entertain the viewer. At the core of his ideas usually stood themes such as love, friendship, jealousy, revenge and betrayal — the things that have always stirred an audience. Where the comedy "+20, -35 Degrees, 100% Precipitation" presents all its events in an eccentric-comic register, with the characters not speaking a single word throughout the film, the thriller "The Stranger" raises new questions in an entirely different light.
In the first film he pays tribute to the comedies of Buster Keaton, Leonid Gaidai and Jackie Chan. In the second, he channels the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock and the vivid colors of Dario Argento's giallo. He balances between romantic relationships and the most uninhibited sex. The fight scenes in his films are always distinguished by their novelty and originality of staging. Each film is completely unlike the others. As a vivid perfectionist, Dmitry has spent years polishing his craft, defending his claim to a permanent place under the sun in cinema. His creed — do it as well as you can, or don't do it at all — is the basic rule behind his filmmaking. In a world of high technology and computer special effects, Dmitry prefers to put human feeling at the center of his unique stories, proving that it is people, not machines, who are still very much in fashion.
Filmography
1. 2005 – "Squishy" (Khlyupik) (director, actor, cinematographer, art director, editor, fight and stunt coordinator)
2. 2015 – "Operation New Year in Reverse" (director, actor, cinematographer, editor)
3. 2016 – "Love by Certificate" (producer, editor, actor, stunt coordinator)
4. 2016 - "+20, -35 Degrees, 100% Precipitation" (director, actor, producer, cinematographer, sound designer, editor, art director, fight and stunt coordinator)
5. 2016 - "The Stranger" (director, actor, producer, cinematographer, editor, art director, fight and stunt coordinator)