Premiere of the teaser of the fantasy action film “Upon the Magic Roads”

We are glad to present to you the teaser of the fantasy action film “Upon the Magic Roads” – based on the tale by Petr Ershov about adventures of a peasant’s son John and his loyal help-mate Foal.

Produced by CTB Film Company, CGF Studio and Channel One Russia, with support from the Cinema Foundation of Russia.

Producers: Sergey Selyanov, Aleksandr Gorokhov, Anton Zlatopolskiy. Pavel Derevyanko as Foal.

Only in cinemas from February 18!

Synopsis: John’s not a czarevitch, not a hero, not a good looker. Moreover, his older brothers think he’s a fool. Everything changes when John meets his new friend and a loyal helper – Foal. He may be small, but he is brave and intelligent. No enemy is scary with a friend like Foal. Well, almost no enemy. Anything is possible with such a friend. Well, almost anything. John and Foal would have to test their friendship, face a fierce enemy, overcome many difficulties and meet love that worth risking it all. Well, almost all of it.
 
Pavel Derevyanko: “My Foal is magical: he can fly, he knows a lot of stuff, he kids and he’s ironic – you can talk to him. I’ve never played anyone like him before. The technology was like this: before the shootings they took me to a special studio and attached a lot of pick-offs to my face and shot the smiling, smirking, grimaces. During the shootings I didn’t have to act with my face. That time I was wearing a special suite with many pick-offs and I had to make special moves. Because the Foal is so small and should have been much shorter than John, I had to spend all the shootings on my hunkers – it wasn’t easy. In general, the shootings were pretty challenging for the cast: a few people had an experience in working with chromakey, for me it was “Salyut-7”, but that time we had theatricals and I played a man. This time we had to imagine a fantastic forest, the flying Firebird, rocks lying on the ground, the whole world! For me it was the first experience like this, complicated, but interesting”.

Sergey Selyanov, producer: “Can you imagine it? A real, not animated, a real Foal! A real Firebird and Magical Whale! Wonderful actors! Amazing costumes and theatricals! And a lot of miracles! This is a fairy-tale. Spectators love tales, especially ours. It’s because in such tales there are more timely things than in the modern realistic films. In the tale there are features of the national character and the lifestyle. Besides, there’s a love story in our film – John performs all the feats with the help of his friend Foal because of love. I love the tale and wouldn’t lie if I told you that I read it 20 times as a kid”.

Aleksandr Gorokhov, producer: “Once my friend and I were thinking over stories that could be screened, thought of “Upon the Magic Roads” and decided to film it. Tales are always interesting for spectators. I started reading it out loud and realized that despite the fact that the text by Ershov was great, it would be really hard to film it – we had to write a prosaic text with the main plot of the tail. All in all, we called Sergey Selyanov – the main tale-producer in the country and he responded in a positive way. Then Anton Andreevich Zlatopolskiy and Channel One Russia joined us, we started working on the project. Obviously, the question about the main character came up. Pavel Derevyanko was the first actor we thought of when we were deciding who would play Foal. At first it wasn’t clear for him – the actor plays a part, but he isn’t in shot. But all the emotions were his: how he reacts, what pauses makes, how says the text, frowns, smiles. We try to make Foal a realistic character – like there’s such an animal and he visited us in the studio”.

Anton Zlatopolskiy, producer: “There’s nothing better than our Russian tale – smart, cunning, wise and fun – it contains spiritual genetics of our people. Working on “Upon the Magic Roads” is especially exciting for us. Because adults are also children and we all need a fairy-tale, which we make real with out high-tech beautiful fun ironic film with brilliant acting. I’m sure that the spectators would be happily watching adventures of Foal – adults and children”.