-Who is Maria Pronin?
I’m a film director from Russia, filming music videos, features, documentaries and commercials. Actually In the past I’m also a ballet dancer and a journalist.

-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

I think that it was rather not an inspiration, but an unconscious need.  My parents had many friends, and they in their turn had many children, and I was the oldest among them, and I had to figure out how to entertain them when they came to visit us, rather frequently.  Since I have been dancing for as long as I can remember, I started doing plays and musicals with them.  All summer we prepared the play, my cousin wrote the script, we made scenery, sewed costumes, and at the end of the summer we put on a show on the volleyball court.  I didn’t know that I was a director, it’s just that everyone called me that, аnd one day I told my mother: «I think I want to be a director”. But she answered: “Masha, it’s difficult to be a woman director, you won’t earn any respect or money,” my dad died, and I decided that I need a serious profession. I did not know what I wanted, but I studied well and entered the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University.  After graduation, I still did not know what to do, and I had to remember what I did all day long, for which no one paid me money and I was happy.  In general, this is what I’m doing now (although sometimes after all producers pay me), directing is something that helps me to be alive, and it inspires me.

-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

I think yes, but these are not radical changes. But they are still very important for the cultural level of a society which is being brought up on a good, important cinema, can make these changes on its own.  Through cinema we live out many emotions, many lives and experiences, and we can determine for ourselves with the help of a director and screenwriter, what we would like to see in our own lives and what – not.  It’s like a dream, after which you wake up and understand that this is what you’ll never do, and sometimes you wake up and understand that this is your dream life and you want to strive for it.

-What would you change in the world?

It seems to me that there is a lot of hate in the world. People in completely different countries, regardless of the standard of living, on a subconscious level are afraid to be alone and not to survive. So they unite against each other, bull the weak and different.  I would like the world to be kinder, I dream about the world where people understand themselves and their inner world better, and not live like blind kittens.  With my films, I would like to talk more about insights with people, to give people a better understanding of themselves and ability to make choices based on the best part of their personality. I’m dreaming about peace!

-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

I can’t say what will happen to me next week, and you ask me for a forecast for 100 years!  I don’t know, but I’m sure it will be something we couldn’t even imagine.