“I heard destiny calling… I was going to be a cheesemaker.” In this short film, War and Cheese, Oleg Sirota discovered Russia was banning cheese, so he decided to be a cheesemaker. Via Short of the Week:
Sweet dreams are made of cheese. At least that’s the case for almost impossibly goofy Oleg Sirota, the star of Ben Garfield’s 9min documentary War & Cheese. A large dose of humour and a pinch of conflicting emotions are mixed together in this tale of high hopes and perseverance, so full of flavour and charm, it’s an experience to savour.
When Oleg Sirota learnt that his beloved motherland Russia was banning the import of all Western cheese, he sold his house and cars, took out a loan and built himself a cheese factory, with the ultimate goal of creating the perfect “Russian Parmesan”. A scrappy entrepreneur, Sirota also exhibits ideas and attitudes that are at odd with most of his audience, and Garfield’s film is an engrossing and honest character study, stripped of directorial flourishes such as music or fast-cut sequences, laying bare Sirota for the audience to judge and laugh along the way.
The idea for War & Cheese was born when Garfield’s friend, and future producer of the short, Audrey Kurganov returned from Moscow with a suitcase full of cheese. After he explained about Russia’s ban on Western cheese, the director thought it’d make an interesting documentary. When he heard about Sirota and his cheese farm, the duo knew they had found their guy. ‘The name of Oleg’s factory – Russian Parmesan – is an oxymoron to me, though to him it makes perfect sense. I wanted to understand this better, and get an insight into his worldview’ – Garfield explains.