Film screening and creative meeting with director Elena Yakovich “Life Is Not Easy. Yours, Sergei Dovlatov in Los Angeles

A documentary film by Elena Yakovich and Alexei Shishov — creators of the legendary "Walk with Brodsky" — tells of the extraordinary fate of Sergei Dovlatov, a writer whose deserved fame began only after his death.Dovlatov is a legendary man, an anecdotal man, a mythical man. But what was he really like? In the film, his women and friends who knew him on both sides of the ocean talk about him: Vasily Aksyonov, Ernst Neizvestny, Anatoly Naiman, Lyudmila Stefan, Tamara Zibunova, and others. Dovlatov's own voice and sound are heard in messages left on the answering machine of his beloved woman, as well as in his last interview to American television.Viewers will see unique footage and photographs from private and state archives, including a beloved 1973 film in which Dovlatov unexpectedly appears in the role of Peter I. Separate themes of the film became his relationship with Joseph Brodsky and the legendary émigré newspaper "The New American".Leningrad, Tallinn, and New York — the three main cities in Dovlatov's life — determined the geography of the film. San Francisco, where his first love Asya Pekurovskaya lived, was added to them.After the screening, there will be a discussion of the film and a creative meeting with director Elena Yakovich, a presentation of her books "Walks with Brodsky and Beyond" and "The Two of Them. The Story of Shostakovich's Wife," as well as an autograph session.