Film Archive

Bear's Kiss (Kuss des Baeren, Der)

She was fourteen. She flew on a trapeze and danced with a bear. He was the bear ... a shape-shifter who could transform himself into a young man, moving between two worlds.

One day he asked her: "Do you want me, or do you want your bear?"

"I want both of you," she replied, kissing him.

For a while they were happy together. Until he killed a man to protect her...

Sergei Bodrov was born in 1948 in Russia. He studied at the Russian film school VGIK, and began his directing career at the Kazakhfilm Studio in Almaty, where he helped to nurture the 'new wave' in Kazakh cinema. From 1991-1992, he taught at the Moscow State Film Institute; he has since been a guest professor at UCLA, the University of New Orleans, East Hampton College and the University of Hamburg. The first international retrospective of his work was held at the Toronto Film Festival in 1993; this was followed by tributes at the festivals in Thessaloniki (1996) and La Rochelle (1997) and at the Los Angeles County Museum (1997). Aside from writing the scripts for his own films, he has written or collaborated on more than twenty films for other directors in Russia, France, Germany and the USA - including most recently Regis Wargnier's East-West (1999), an Academy Award-nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. He was named European Screenwriter of the Year in 1996. He now divides his time between Russia and the USA. A selection of his award-winning films includes: Sweet Juice of the Grass (1984), Non-Professionals (1985), I Hate You (TV, 1986), Freedom is Paradise (1989), Gambler (1990), White King, Red Queen (1992), I Wanted to See Angels (1992), Prisoner of the Mountains (1996), Running Free (2000), The Quickie (2001), and Bear’s Kiss (Der Kuss des Baeren, 2002).
 

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2002
Director Sergei Bodrov
Screenplay Sergei Bodrov, Carolyn Cavallero
Director of Photography Xavier Perez Grobet
Editor Mette Zeruneith
Music by Giya Kancheli, SIG
Production Design Bernd Lepel
Producers Karl Baumgartner, Sergei Bodrov, Christoph Friedel
Production Company Pandora Film Produktion/Cologne, in co-production with Alia Film/Rome, CTB, St. Petersburg, Film I Vaest/Trollhaettan, Memfis Film, Stockholm, Orsans-Pyramide/Paris, Tornasol Films, Madrid, in association with ARTE/Strasbourg, ARTE/Paris, Boje Buck Produktion/Berlin, Tele+/Rome, VCC Perfect Pictures/Hamburg, ZDF/Mainz
Principal Cast Keith Allen, Sergei Bodrov, Jr., Maurizio Donadoni, Ariadna Gil, Joachim Król, Rebecka Liljeberg, Marcella Musso, Silvio Orlando, Anne-Marie Pisani
Casting Susie Figgis, Beatrice Krueger, Heta Mantscheff, Puce
Special Effects VCC Perfect Pictures/Hamburg
Studio Shooting VCC Perfect Pictures/Hamburg
Length 92 min, 2,517 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Original Version English
Subtitled Versions Italian
Sound Technology Dolby Digital, EX
Festival Screenings Venice 2002 (in competition), Toronto 2002, Pusan 2002, Havana 2002
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), FilmFoerderung Hamburg, Filmstiftung NRW, Via Digital, MEDIA II, Eurimages, CNC

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