Up to the Neck, or Bodybuilding

For a great part of his life, Igor Stepanovich Bosanko worked as a model for the most famous monuments in the Soviet era. He sat for statues of Lenin, Stalin, Soviet field marshalls, commissioners and kolkhoz farmers. The enormous monuments of the Soviet leaders (up to twenty metres tall) made up the symbol of the former Soviet Union. The symbol of power and invincibility that had to be maintained. The handsome and well-built ex-sportsman Bosanko was the perfect model for Stalin, although they did not look at all similar. By means of mixing this mini-portrait of Bosanko with archive footage, the director depicts the atmosphere, ideals, belief and hope of people living in the Soviet era. The film has been edited in a remarkable way, as if the director is juggling with archive footage. Despite this manipulation‘ the film, as a story about the Soviet era, remains free of prejudice and negative evaluations. Director Alexandre Goutman was born in Moscow and studied at the famous Moscow Film School, where he specialised in camera work. As a cameraman he made more than seventy short and full evening‘s films, and as a director he made thirty films so far. Four years ago he founded his own ‘Atelier-Film-Alexandre‘, a studio where also his latest film up to the neck, or bodybuilding was produced. It is the story of Igor Stepanovich Bosanko, the man who was a model for countless statues that can be found all over the former Soviet Union. He sat for monuments of Lenin and Stalin, but also for numerous sculptures of miners and field marshals. Today the old Bosanko can hardly get by on his meagre pension. He would like to have a cut of the pension of a party leader or a marshal. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)