Wanted young actors

Kantemir Balagov's film "BUTTERFLY JAM" will open the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Story of One Script
"When I started writing" BUTTERFLY JAM," I was living in Russia. I wanted to tell the story of a son and a father-about how we want our fathers to be heroes, how we gradually realize they're only human, how we learn to recognize genuine, quiet heroism, and how we grow up by coming to terms with our parents' human frailties and misconceptions. I wanted the action to take place in my native Nalchik, and I strove to write this story as a personal message to my Kabardian people.
But, like a superhero father in the eyes of a son, the world rarely lives up to our expectations.
( ...)
I didn't know what fate awaited me and my film. I was inspired by the discovery of a Kabardian community living in New York and New Jersey, and I began to reimagine BUTTERFLY JAM in this new reality.

The theme of emigration, which has become part of history (not to mention my own life), enriched BUTTERFLY JAM. It further divided my father, who moved to the United States as a boy and retained the modesty inherent to his people, and my 15-year-old hero, Pitekh, a wrestling champion born into a country and a worldview of big dreams. Pitekh's desire for separation, combined with his deep love for his father, resonated with my own feelings about my community.

When I first began writing this story, I felt like Pitekh. Today, perhaps, I am more like my father. But their story has not changed, and it is this story I want to share with you today. "BUTTERFLY JAM" is a man's story, told in rosy tones. There's cruelty in it, but I'd say this cruelty is overcome by tenderness-and this is precisely the essence of Pitekh's difficult journey to early adulthood.

I've always uncompromisingly explored the bonds of family and friendship. And in this sense, "BUTTERFLY JAM" is a continuation of that path for me. But in her painful search for separation from her family for her own identity and in her quest to find hope after disappointment, I hope to also find my own artistic evolution.

"TIGHTNESS" and "BEAN" and "BUTTERFLY JAM" live in the emotions of our actors. For the roles of Pitekh and his friend Alika, a 15-year-old Nigerian wrestler, I found young actors who were age-appropriate for their characters, as I did in my first two films.

"BUTTERFLY JAM" is an experience I think each of us can relate to: the struggle for faith after losing what's most precious and the search for hope that allows us to grow beyond our own defeat.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share this story with the world."

#Kantemir_Balagov.