MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS opens on July 14, 2017, at the 4-Star Theatre in San Francisco. FILMMAKER IN PERSON: director, writer, and co-producer Johnny O’Reilly will be in person at select shows. He will Q&A on Friday, July 14, after the 8:30pm show; and on Saturday, July 15, will Q&A after the 6:30pm show, and introduce the 8:30pm show. Tickets are available at
http://www.lntsf.com/4star/
Irish writer/director Johnny O’Reilly, who lived in Moscow for twelve years, has made a compelling Russian drama telling the story of five interlocking characters on a single day, the Moscow City Day holiday, celebrated with parades and fireworks.
Like a Russian
Crash, the film dives headlong into the volatile intersections and intimate lives of five people. A high-powered entrepreneur is threatened with losing everything in a fight with corrupt government officials. His beautiful, mercenary singer girlfriend is set to perform in a large outdoor concert that night, but is secretly being wooed by her lovelorn ex-boyfriend. A famous former film star, aging and critically ill, just wants to find a drink, but instead gets embroiled in a bizarre kidnapping.
Featuring a strong cast and beautiful vistas of the Moscow cityscape, MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS reveals the unrestrained energy of Europe’s biggest city and the savagery and beauty of the Russian spirit. The film stars many of Russia’s best-known actors, including Aleksey Serebryakov
(Leviathan); also starring Evgenia Brik, Yuriy Stoyanov, Mikhail Efremov, Lubov Aksenova, Oleg Dolin, Anastasia Shalonko.
MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS is an official Russian-Irish co-production, financed by Russian private equity funding, the Irish Film Board, the Irish Section 481 Tax incentive, Eurimages and AI Film. It was produced by Johnny O’Reilly of Snapshot Films (Russia), Katie Holly from Blinder Films (Ireland)
The origins of MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS date back to the early 1990s, when filmmaker Johnny O’Reilly was a young student of Russian in Trinity College Dublin. He arrived in Moscow on an exchange program to study at Moscow State University. With a collapsing political system and an exploding sense of freedom, Moscow in 1993 was a heady, intoxicating place for a young visitor keen for adventure and life experience. When Yeltsin sent in the tanks to resolve the constitutional crisis of October 1993, O'Reilly was inside the white house parliament building reporting on the historical moment for foreign newspapers.
“When you witness a tragic event like that of October '93 close up, you can’t help thinking about your own place in society, about how history and politics can affect the lives of individuals. Ever since that experience in Moscow, I’ve always thought about narratives which merge personal stories to something more widely relevant in society.”
INTERVIEW AVAILABILITY: director, writer, and co-producer Johnny O’Reilly is available in advance by phone or Skype, and in person in San Francisco July 13-15.
Johnny O’Reilly is uniquely an outsider, and an insider, giving him a unique viewpoint in making MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS. Although filmed prior to the recent U.S. election, the film has relevance to the contoversy and philosophies of Putin and Trump, and O’Reilly is a passionate spokeperson to discuss this, as he says,
"The film does carry some implicit criticisms of the Russian government, but also highlights the humanity and compassion of normal Russian people. I try to emphasize the point that there are two Russias – the Russian government and the Russian people, and that they are very separate. Russians should not be answerable for the egregious actions of Putin’s government – especially given the fact that it’s not a true democracy.”
Official website:
http://www.moscowneversleeps.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/moscowneversleepsfilm
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyEkMN6lQKs
Facebook event for SF:
https://www.facebook.com/events/684176551782575/
MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS has a running time of 100 minutes; it is unrated. Digital photos are at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwoOa885JfbHMEduRGVQR1h5UGs
Press notes:
http://www.moscowneversleeps.com/press/mns-press-notes.pdf
For any further information, please contact Steve Indig at
steve@steveindigpr.com or 415.577.3656