Background :
In 1859, the modern oil industry began in Pennsylvania. Naturally, the industrial exploration and development of fields commenced immediately after in every corner of the world.
Descending from a prominent Hungarian noble family, Laszlo Sandor was an American industrialist, businessman, adventurer, and, most intriguingly, the godfather of the Russian oil industry.
Time has not left us a single image of him, but we do have a large number of materials that provide us with the amazing story of this entrepreneur, who continually surprises us with his courage, exploits, and of course, his enormous footprint on the development of the oil industry in Russia.
Synopsis :
In 1859, Sandor set out to find new markets for oil in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Laszlo presented a lighting mechanism and his own formula for a gas with an especially bright flame to none other than Tsar Alexander II, and he received the imperial privilege of providing light to the streets of Saint Petersburg for a period of 10 years.
Based on his successes in the capital, together with Novosiltsev the pioneer of oil business in Russia, Sandor began to search for oil in the Taman Peninsula in 1864. Before the arrival of Laszlo, oil was extracted in an extremely primitive way in Russia, from wells just a few meters deep, and workers literally scooped it up with an ordinary bucket. Sandor brought state-of-the-art steam engines with him from America and drilled wells as deep as 1,161 feet.
Sandor used the new Pennsylvania technology, but his efforts were unsuccessful in the end. This failure not only did not stop Sandor, however: it pushed him towards even more risky and daring attempts. He went off in search of oil alone in the Kazan and Samara provinces. In a village, lost among the forests, where local peasants became his workforce, he began to search for oil and dig wells.
He spent 5 years and 850 thousand rubles (amounting to more than 10 million dollars today), but he never achieved industrial oil production. He missed the enormous oil reserves by only 500 feet.
Today this place is known as the Romashkino oilfield, one of the largest and least known oil regions in the world. Up to the present day, in the village of Shugurovo there are still legends and stories about Sandor, preserved in people’s memories, that have been passed down from generation to generation.
The oil industry that Sandor helped build later developed into the powerful petrochemical industry in Russia that helped the Allies defeat Nazi Germany in the 2nd World War, literally fueling those thousands of tanks, airplanes, and trucks needed to win. To the present day, 40% of the Russian budget comes from oil revenues. At the same time, there are no squares or monuments to Laszlo Sandor, and his name does not grace a single street.
The story of the successes and failures of the businessman-adventurer Laszlo Sandor is truly amazing and worthy of becoming famous!
Laszlo’s story of oil exploration is inextricably tied to the contemporary development of science, technology, and industry. Parallel to Sandor’s exploits, our film tracks the development of science, the discovery of new engineering solutions, and the influence of these events on the development of oil drilling and production enterprises.
Production Style :
The film will be produced in the style of popular science films with reconstructions of a few scenes, using high-definition film, high-quality graphics, and professional sound.
The film will use original documents from the federal archives, imagery and photographs preserved to our day, and interviews with Doctor Vladimir Noskovy, Professor of history at the Russian Academy of Sciences and author of the book “Laszlo Sandor and the Origins of the Oil Business in Russia.”
Filming will take place in Russia in Saint Petersburg and in the village Shugurovo in the Republic of Tatarstan, where the museum of oil has carefully preserved the story of Laszlo Sandor.
Filming will be in HD with computer graphics of the highest quality.
Work Schedule :
January — February 2021: Screenwriting and preparatory work
March — April 2021: Computer graphics and interview scenes
May 2021: Exterior Shots
June 2021: Editing
Our Team :
The director Irina Lokteva (second from the left in the photo) has more than 20 years of experience in Russian television as director and screenwriter for television programs, documentary films, music videos, and advertising. She specializes in entertainment programing, television shows, and popular science films, winning awards from the Russian Academy of Television for her work. In addition to her television work, she also produces content for several YouTube channels.
The director of photography Anton Savileysky (second from the right) is a member of the Videographers Guild, a pilot, and a car blogger. Anton has worked primarily on documentary films, but he also was part of the film crew for the arthouse film Rudolf Nureyev: Rebellious Demon. He has more than 20 years of experience as a cameraman for television shows and sports programming. He has commonly collaborated with our director Irina Lokteva.
Pavel Sokolovsky (first on the left) will take on the role of Laszlo Sandor. He is an actor, director, screenwriter, and filmmaker, with a long and successful career in both film and television. Pavel also teaches acting and stage movement.