Dreams in Waking and Sleeping. The Perpetual Mobile of Stepan Bobyl

Viktor Ivanovich Merezhko (born July 28, 1937, farm Olgenfeld, Alexandrovsky district, Rostov Oblast, RSFSR, USSR) is a Soviet and Russian film actor, film director, screenwriter, playwright, and television host. People’s Artist of the Russian Federation (2014), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1987).

Based on screenplays by Viktor Merezhko, fifty films and twelve animated films were made, including such well-known works as “Relatives,” “Flights in a Dream and in Reality,” “Citizen Nikanorova awaits you,” and “A Lonely Woman Wishes to Meet Someone.”

He is known as a playwright; his plays “The Proletarian Mill of Happiness,” “Night Pleasures,” “The Cry,” “I’m a Woman,” and “The Women’s Table in the Hunting Hall” are widely known and are performed in many theatres.

In 1989–1993, Viktor Merezhko hosted the popular program “Kino Panorama” in the USSR and Russia.

He was at the origins of the creation of the TV channel “TV-6 Moscow,” was the first Vice President of the Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation, and personally, by proxy, received the first broadcasting license for the channel from Eduard Sagalaev. From 1994 to 2002 he was the host of the “My Cinema” program on the TV-6 Moscow channel.

After TV-6 ceased to exist, Merezhko left the “sixth button,” and from 2002 to 2004 he was part of the management of the “M1” channel as Deputy General Director Sergey Moskvin. Of the work of his successors on the sixth button, the screenwriter spoke with disapproval: “For me TVS didn’t exist. I’m saying this not out of spite, but because it was the weakest, the least confident, and the most poorly thought-out TV channel in Russia.” At the same time, a little earlier—working with the same people at TV-6 in 2001–2002—Merezhko described them diametrically differently: “Communication with the new TV-6 team gives me pleasure. These are people not only of high culture, but also—most importantly—highly professional. The team understands what needs to be done in a fun and beautiful way, and not momentarily and scandalously.”

Since the 1990s, Merezhko has constantly been acting, mostly in crime series. Audiences noted his roles in the film “Racketeering” (1992) and the series “Mole” (2001–2002).

Secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia and Moscow, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, Honored Worker of Arts of the RSFSR (1988).

Chairman of the board of the House of Cinema. One of the founders of the film academy “Nika” and its first president (now—an honorary member of the Council of this academy). One of the organizers of the film festival of CIS and Baltic countries “Kinotshok.”

Since 1995, he has been the artistic director of the TV company “Kaskad.” Artistic director of the program “The Wheel of History,” as well as artistic director of the company “Goldvideo.”

In 1999, together with composer Yevgeny Bednenko, he carried out the project “Stars of Theatre and Cinema Sing,” which included popular actors Vera Vasileva, Aleksandr Zbruyev, Aleksandr Mikhailov, Natalya Varley, Larisa Golubkina, Mikhail Yevdokimov, Boris Khmelnitsky, Aleksey Buldakov, Yuriy Chernov, and the group “Chorus” by Yevgeny Bednenko. The project resulted in concerts and a music disc released in the USA and broadcast by “MPS Radio.”

Contents:
Flights in a Dream and in Reality
Perpetuations of Stepan Bobyl’s Mobile