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Aug 31, 2021 · After two decades working as a producer, Livnev was back behind the camera in 2019 for the bittersweet family drama Van Goghs, which is Klassiki’s Pick of the Week from 31st August. We spoke with Livnev about his return to filmmaking, self-acceptance, and his memories of the 1990s.
Sergei Livnev’s Hammer and Sickle emphasizes the artificiality of high Stalinism by drawing attention to the stylized nature of Stalinist cultural production. Centered on a successful sex-change operation, the film stresses the constructed and performative nature of the Stalinist gendered subject.
Biography. Director, producer, scriptwriter. Studied in the departments of cinematography (class of V. Yusov) and scriptwriting (class of A. Bizyak) at the Film Institute VGIK. In 1988 the first film based on his script hit the screens: “ASSA” (dir. Sergei Soloviev).
The tale of a simple female tractor driver who undergoes an experimental gender reassignment procedure before being drawn into the dark heart of Soviet power, Hammer and Sickle is a queer comedy, a bleak satire, and an explosive reimagining of the iconography of the twentieth century, all in one.
- Sergey Livnev
- MMM, Roskomkino, Gorky Film Studios, Russia-1
Van Goghs is the eagerly anticipated directorial return of Sergei Livnev, whose last film, the cult classic Hammer and Sickle (also starring Serebriakov) was made a quarter of a century ago.
The article discusses female masculinity in the 1994 Russian film "Hammer and Sickle," directed by Sergei Livnev. The movie is a comedy about a Russian woman who underwent a sex change operation.
A tale which stems from an assertion by the filmmakers that, in the '30s, Stalin endorsed the idea of sex-change operations for the purpose of providing more soldiers for the motherland. Specifically, the story follows Evdokia Kuznetsova, a female inmate of the Stalinist gulag who is handed over to.
