Four enthusiasts set off on a round-the-world journey by helicopter. A film about dreams that erase boundaries — and the price that must be paid for them.
Dmitry Kubasov
2018
About
The documentary Helicopters tells the story of a round-the-world journey undertaken by four aviation enthusiasts flying helicopters. Over the course of forty-three days, the crew travels across Europe, Africa, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, spending up to ten hours a day in the air.
The film’s protagonists are not professional aviators, but people for whom flying has become a way of life. At its center is pilot Mikhail Fariх, whose love of the sky is rooted in family history: he inherited his passion for aviation from his father and grandfather and carried it throughout his life. Fariх was one of the most active advocates of small aviation in Russia, campaigning at the legislative level for the right to fly freely and viewing restrictions as absurd.
Helicopters is a film about the collision between dream and reality, about a freedom that both attracts and destroys, and about the human desire to rise above the ground—even when the cost of that ascent becomes unbearably high.
Reviews
“During a landing in Omsk, Fariq explains his undertaking to a random passerby: ‘I’m flying home.’ This is a key episode that sheds light on much in this man’s life: on the one hand, a powerful, almost obsessive drive toward flight and the unknown; on the other, an equally strong force that constantly draws him back home.”
“…An excellent play on the contrast ‘Russia vs. the rest of the world,’ which runs through every element of the narrative: perspectives, dialogues, and the characters’ relationships with their surroundings in different countries. The twist in the finale shifts the direction of the story by 180 degrees, yet ultimately only strengthens the overall impression.”
“What interested me was that, for an extended period, the subjects of observation would be people who are essentially taboo for cinema—especially documentary. They are absent; they are ‘not allowed.’ You can travel hundreds of kilometers to film an old woman, or shoot hooligans in a stairwell. But I know very few examples where wealthy people are observed over time. It was important for me to understand who they are and to place them within the space of cinema.”
Dmitry Kubasov — director
A documentary filmmaker. Author of the films Alyokhin (2012), Winter, Go Away! (2012), and Butterflies (2016).
A graduate of the School of Documentary Film and Theatre founded by Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov.
Participant and award-winner at international film festivals including Locarno, IDFA, DOK Leipzig, Artdocfest, and Message to Man.
Curator of the documentary filmmaking workshop at the Moscow School of New Cinema (MSNC).
Currently lives in Germany.
- Director:
- Dmitry Kubasov
- Composer:
- Ivan Malezhik
- Sound designer:
- Ilya Petukhov
- Cinematographer:
- Dmitry Kubasov
- Editor:
- Dmitry Kubasov
- Producers:
- Anastasia Murashkina and Tikhon Pendyurin
- Featuring:
- Mikhail Fariх, Dmitry Rakitsky, Alexander Kurylev, Vadim Melnikov