Life & Work with Filipp Romanychev of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Filipp Romanychev

Hi Filipp, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Started my career in 2019 when me and my wife were shooting music videos on a budget. From 2019-2020 I attended a Film Director course at the School of Free Cinema. My thesis film “Message” was screened in Los Angeles, Toronto, London and received award of distinction on Canadian and International Film Festival and the best director of photography award on Zilant international film festival in Kazan, Russia. In 2020 I worked as a video editor for a company which produced trailers for major movies in Russia. In 2021 I got a job as an assistant to casting director and less than a month I became the Head of the Video Production Department, where I created promo videos, filmed casting for our war feature film and wrote episodes of TV shows which were sold to Russian TV channels. In 2021 I made a one-hour pilot The Faces and at the end of the year I moved to Los Angeles, where I received a grant from New York FIlm Academy. As for today I made 12 short films, one-hour pilot episode and a mockumentary feature film. Right now, I am looking for finances for a feature horror/action film The Human Face which is about a cynical physician who wants to flee Hawaii with his family during the virus outbreak, but the military cease the island and make him create an antidote.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle is to find investors for your projects. A lot of indie producers rely on tax incentives and that is the reason a lot of productions take place anywhere else but in the US lately. Another thing is presales, so you need ex-Alist actors from the 90’s movies who are attracting audiences in Europe and Asia. All these things make your production budget to grow and investors turn away, because some of them used to make movies for less than $200 000 and the costs now are very high. Nevertheless, I am positive that I will be able to find a way to secure funding and make my movie THE HUMAN FACE.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
When I started making movies, I drew a picture of myself making sad festival dramas on social issues. As I made my movies, I found out that I am great at making comedies. It all started from an assignment at the director’s course which was to make a short film about a person in a complex situation. So, I came up with a story about an unsecure guy who instead of a psychological group came up to a meeting with criminals who are planning a robbery. People of different ages laughed at the screening. Then I made a short film which was based on Anton Chekhov’s play “The Death of the Government Clerk”. I showed this movie to people from US, Europe and Asia and all of them were laughing. As my thesis film at New York Film Academy, I made a sci-fi comedy movie about an alien who got kicked out from her planet for being coward and on her tail lands masseuse from Earth who thinks that he is a heartbreaker and now they must get back home. The movie was a succes on screening, people demanded more. Currently, the movie is available at the streaming platform mevue.com and the movie is called GALAXY BOOK.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory happened when I was 12 years old and I lived in the countryside during the summer. It was the first year when all of my friends stopped visiting the countryside, except my friend Vitaly. We were bored to death. One day I offered Vitaly to make a movie with toy soldiers and different toy insects that I had. At that time I was a huge fan of Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake and I wanted to make a movie like his. We made a movie about soldiers who were sailing during the WWII and they crashed on an island with huge insects. At the end there was a twist that they became smaller and they actually appeared in year 2006. We screened this movie to our family members and neighbors. It was pure magic for me.

Pricing:

• $5 for a Movie GALAXY BOOK. All the profits will be used to make a feature film.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbM0SZHk7pY
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/filiannapolis/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HoneyBustard69/videos
• Other: https://mevue.com/video/0193dc5b-a4a3-47c5-be14-f37cc1ce0621