On 28 and 29 October, Russian movies Empresses and Peter I. The Last Tsar and the First Emperor were premiered in Belgrade. The screenings were part of a program of the first Hermitage Days in Serbia, a major international cultural event organized by the State Hermitage, Ministry of Culture of Serbia and Gazprom Neft company.
The movies were premiered in the Ethnographic Museum. Here, Serbian viewers were able to not only see Russian historic feature movies for the first time, but also talk to their director Andrei Kravchuk (Admiral, Viking, Union of Salvation) during a meet-the-artist session.
Peter I. The Last Tsar and the First Emperor is a large-scale historical project created for a family audience. It painstakingly recreates the most momentous events of 17th and 18th century Russia, explaining how Ancient Rus became the empire that would later lay the foundation of the modern Russia. The premiere in Russia was arranged for the 350th anniversary of the first Russian emperor’s birth. It became the top-grossing historical feature movie in history of Russian releases.
In turn, Empresses is dedicated to first female rulers of the Russian empire: Catherine I (Ksenia Utekhina), Anna Ioannovna (Anna Ukolova) and the main character of the film, Elizaveta Petrovna, whose role was played by Yulia Peresild. The production took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg: to capture the essence of that time, many palaces and country estates were used. Moreover, dozens of costumes that resembled empresses’ attires as close as possible were prepared specifically for the movie.