Emmanuil Vitorgan: I would like to Thank Everyone Coming to Theatres and Cinema Halls

A meeting with an actor Emmanuil Vitorgan and his wife Irina was held today at the 14th Kazan International Festival of Muslim Film in Almaz Cinema Port, gathered a full hall of fans of this famous Soviet and Russian actor starred in over 100 films.

Emmanuil Vitorgan performed a song from a legendary Soviet film Sorcerers, opening the meeting.

`I have experienced an incredible amount of losses, saving the memory, the memory about my colleagues, that passed away, with whom I lived together for 60 years’, commented the artist. He told about his studies at the Leningrad Theatre Institute under the supervision of Boris Zona. `I was lucky to have such great teachers. They gave me a profession, which I dreamed since my childhood`, said Emmanuil Vitorgan and performed an other song In Memory of Friends. `Georgiy Tovstonogov, Oleg Efremov, Clara Luchko, Vladimir Vysotsky, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Yuri Yakovlev, Peter Fomenko, Yuri Lyubimov, Vasily Aksenov and Lev Durov, I remember you all and I am grateful that we shared so many moments together. Thank you for everyone coming to theatres and cinema halls. It is our reason for living`, he said. Spouses Vitorgan told about the recent death of their close friend, a people's artist of the USSR Iosif Kobzon. `13 years struggling to live… He had an incredible courage... He is forever in our hearts’, said Emmanuil Vitorgan.

Emmanuil Vitorgan also recited the poetry by a Russian playwright and screenwriter Alexander Volodin: `He was an incredibly modest man. I was literally getting out his works from his table. They are quite simple in terms of form, but quite powerful in terms of their content`, he commented.

The couple performed several songs from their album Thank You for Everything, showing videos and photos from their family archive, including a photo of Ethel, a 7-month-old daughter of Emmanuel and Irina Vitorgan. `We could be parents regardless of age. We are grateful to the fate that presented us our daughter’, he said. Irina Vitorgan sang a Lullaby written by Zhanna Dantseva specifically for little Ethel.

The actor made a separate gift for Kazan, performing a song My Old Friend accompanied by the presentation of archival and modern photographs of the capital of Tatarstan. He also thanked the organizing committee of the festival for the invitation to come `to this amazing city with wonderful architecture and incredible warmth of its inhabitants. We are so grateful for the warmth that you give to the actors here. I hope we will see each other again soon’, concluded Emmanuil Vitorgan.

The executive director of 14^th Kazan International Muslim Film Festival, the general director of Tatarkino Milyausha Aituganova invited Emmanuil and Irina to visit Kazan next year: `It is apleasure that you have joined the festival. I hope that in your next visit to Kazan, you will hold an other meeting, sharing your experience in theatre acting’. She presented the guests flowers and souvenirs from the Kazan Muslim Film Festival: slippers with a Tatar embroidery for Emmanuil and a Tatar bracelet for Irina. The guest of the festival, a Kyrgyz TV presenter, actress and fashion designer Assol Moldokmatova thanked the spouses Vitorgan for `true love, which became an example to follow` and made a gift for little Ethel: she presented a doll in a national Kyrgyz costume.

The photo report of the event is available here