Inspired, Provocative, Daring
<p>Gregory Gan is a filmmaker who has travelled around the world making independent documentary films.</p> <p>He was born in Moscow during the Soviet era, and left Russia to come to France, and then Canada after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, his interest in returning to former republics of the Soviet Union is seen in all of his films. </p> <p>In 2010, as part of his Master's thesis, he completed a major, feature-length documentary about women of the Russian intelligentsia entitled "Turning Back the Waves." In the film, he chronicles seven women, as they describe their experiences in the Soviet Union as "professional" dissidents and Gulag survivors, all through compelling and humane narratives. </p> <p>In the same year, Greg left to pursue another film interest, finishing a master-class in ethnographic filmmaking called "SoundImageCulture" in Belgium, and turning to the Ukraine and Russia for another provocative and compelling documentary, "The Theory of Happiness." </p> <p>"The Theory of Happiness" documents a radical Ukrainian sect trying to discover happiness through mathematical formulas and equations. In order to make the film Gregory Gan became a participant in the sect, renouncing drinking, smoking, swearing and sexual relations as prerequisites of membership. Through an eccentric and author-driven narrative of his experience, this film aims to push both the boundaries of filmmaking, and the boundaries of imagination of the richness of human experience.</p>