LAKE PLACID — Andrei Filimonov and Nathan Farb’s paths crossed in Russia, and the Russian-born poet and fiction writer thought the Jay photographer would be a good subject for a documentary.
Filimonov’s idea was made reality by director Nathaniel Knop in “Nathan Farb and the Cold War.” Its North American premiere is 3:30 p.m., Sunday, at the Palace Theater during the Lake Placid Film Festival.
Pre-screening will feature a 3 p.m. musical interlude by master fiddler Donnie Perkins, a childhood friend of Farb’s.
Knop and Farb will participate in a post-screening discussion.
SYNOPSIS
“The landmark exhibition ‘Photography in the USA,’ which brought Nathan Farb to Siberia for the first time in 1977, served as a powerful harbinger of the waning Cold War era; it not only marked Nathan’s first photo book success, but also secured his rightful place in the photography collections of MOMA and the Getty.
Following Nathan as he embarks on another expedition to rediscover and capture the essence of the protagonists of ’77 just before Russia invades Ukraine, the film captures a poignant snapshot of a Russian society on the brink of war.
At the same time, the photographer’s own personality materializes in the film – a compelling portrait shaped by his encounters amidst the bustling milieu of New York or the freezing backdrop of Novosibirsk, and against the nature’s grandeur of the Adirondack Mountains.”
Farb served as the host for United States Information Agency cultural exchange exhibition, which took him to Siberia in 1977.
“My part of that show was very small,” he said.
“I showed stuff I had made in Romania over two trips previously. It was a big show. It just included a lot of great photography, and it included a lot of American propaganda. It included all that stuff about the idealized American home. I was the photography host of that show. Thirty young Americans, they all spoke Russian. Many of them had studied Russia in Vermont at Middlebury because there was a Russian language institute. So many of them learned Russian that way. Some of them were children of Russian immigrants.”
Farb found it really boring to talk to professional photography groups about American photography and technology.
“I just couldn’t stand doing that, so I set up a studio photographing ordinary Russians,” he said.
“That’s what made me, and I also understood how to use the Polaroid black-and-white film that had a negative. Polaroid never quite figured out how to do it. When I came back from Russia, they asked me if I would write the manual on how to do it. and I turned Polaroid down because they didn’t offer me enough money. I made many mistakes in my life. I always felt I was worth more than corporations wanted to pay me for my work.”
Farb first experimented with the Polaroid positive/negative film on the streets of New York City.
“I found I was getting something when I was photographing people,” he said.
“I was doing photo buttons on the street. I had a machine that I rented or something. I found that when I was making the photograph for the person that they were going to have and they were going to take home, I found I was getting better, getting something more real, something more truthful than if I did it as a photojournalist or as a art photographer. When I was doing it for the person, I was getting something better.”
Farb also experimented with the film in Romania.
“It’s a black-and-white film,” he said.
“It’s very, very hard to make it work right.”
Farb got it right over and over again when he captured ordinary Russians during his cultural exchange.
“They became a book that was published in Germany and also in other countries and finally in the USA,” he said.
“That was really my first experience in putting a book together. When I took my Adirondack work to Rizzoli, they saw that I could complete a project. I could start a project and put it together and that it was a good product. That helped me get my first book published and successive books published because I had a little bit of a track record. They don’t want to spend their money unless they stand at least some chance of getting their money back. One out of every 20 books is actually successful.”
RETURN TO SIBERIA
Knop called Farb to ask him would he return to Russia to do a reprieve of his 1977 photographs.
“They filmed me,” Farb said.
“I think first they came here before they took me back to Russia. It was 2018. They’ve been working on this film for five years. He’s made other films in the meantime. I feel like in fact he waited for the right moment to finish this film up. I could tell you the reason. It’s because Putin finally invaded Ukraine, and showed his cards.”
Nikolay Karitonov is one of the Russians Farb photographed in 1977.
“I thought he was a businessman,” he said.
“He was so straight. It turned out he was a member of the Communist Party, and he later ran against Putin. He got 68% of the vote two times in the elections in Russia. He was sent all over the world representing Russia. That guy, he speaks on behalf of Russia in a certain way. He says, I can’t imagine a world without Russia. It’s been around for 300 years. If Russia disappears off the face of the Earth, what’s going to …
“I’m not sympathetic to Putin or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I understand what enormous loss the Russian people feel at being torn apart. Being nothing. Now, with China they’re best buddies, with North Korea. The world is totally different.”
In a scene in the film, Farb sings “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” when he’s in Siberia.
“I don’t know the words,” he said.
“I don’t really know the tune. There’s a funny side to me. I like to make fun of myself as well. We’re all a bit odd. We really are. That’s what I say at the end of the film. I am talking to Diane Arbus, she says, ‘Do you think I’m cruel with people?’
“I say no, you’re talking about yourself (with images). There is something wrong with all of us. We are all flawed. So whenever you are doing something, you are talking about yourself as well.”
A German newspaper critic of the film wrote, “it’s not only a document of its times, it’s a cinematic masterpiece.”
“I’m happy for Nathaniel that he got credit because I do think he waited until the right moment to finish off the film,” Farb said.
“He didn’t quite have a film until Russia invaded Ukraine.”