Alex Romanovich (00:01):
Hi, this is Alex Romanovich of the Global Edge Talk podcast. And today we have a very special guest, special to me and special in general, Vadim Perelman is with us. Hello, Vadim.

Vadim Perelman (00:13):
Hello.

Alex Romanovich (00:15):
I want to tell you a few words about Vadim. Vadim is a well-known Hollywood director and producer. He happens to be my classmate for one grade back in Kyiv, Ukraine. I mean, I don't even want to say how many years back.

Vadim Perelman (00:35):
We have black and white photos of our class. That's a hint.

Alex Romanovich (00:39):
Exactly. We're going to reminisce a little bit about this. Vadim was born in 1963, the year I was born in Kyiv, back in the Soviet Union when Kyiv was still a part of the Soviet Union, but he's well known as a director and producer of famous feature films The House of Sand and Fog (2003), The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) and the very latest feature film The Persian Lessons (2020), which we will talk about as well. But in the middle of all of this, there were a number of other movies and a number of other productions as well. He worked with such Oscar-nominated performers himself as well for direction and production, but he also worked with Ben Kingsley, Shohreh Aghdashloo, both The House of Sand and Fog, and he is also well-known for his stories, for his amazing journey that we will discuss as well. He's a global citizen. He maintains homes in probably three to four countries. Is that correct?

Vadim Perelman (01:54):
Yeah, mostly in Canada.

Alex Romanovich (01:58):
Canada, United States, Los Angeles, Czech Republic, Russia, Western Europe, and so many others. So, Vadim, welcome to our studio.

Vadim Perelman (02:09):
Thank you for having me.

Alex Romanovich (02:12):
First, I would love to, even though that might not be a favorite topic because you spoke about it so many times, but I would love to talk about some of the early years. And I think it's a story in itself. Your early years back in Soviet Ukraine, a little bit about immigration, your hardship, but your determination, your emergence as one of the most promising directors or producers in Hollywood, working with Steven Spielberg and names like that. Can you say a few words about that early path if you will?

Vadim Perelman (02:47):
I think we were quite similar in our path, in the way of the early years, is that we're born to Jewish families in Kyiv. And, in my case, we lived in a communal flat, I don't know where you guys live, but it was a communal flat.

Alex Romanovich (03:12):
Same here, communal flat.

Vadim Perelman (03:16):
Many families live in one place and share a kitchen and bathroom facilities, and it's a kind of place where you have a laundry drying on a rope in part or in the middle of the placement. And then at some point, I think with a difference of one year or a couple of years, we had immigrated. Extensively to go to Israel, because that's the country that was given us visas. And at that time we took kind of a detour and in my case, we went to Austria for a very short time, then Italy, where for almost a year, nine-plus months in Italy, and then Western Canada, Edmonton. And so very, very trying different, scary kind of a journey, we didn't know where we're going. We weren't allowed to come back in any way whatsoever because as soon as we applied to leave, we were immediately branded traders of the motherland. My mother lost her job. I was kicked out of school, so on. So, we just sat there on our suitcases as we called it and waited for permission to leave.

Alex Romanovich (04:44):
My grandfather was taken out of the communist party of the Soviet Union. So, it was very dramatic.

Vadim Perelman (04:54):
I'm glad it wasn't worth taking out. It's not so bad. But anyway, then I've had a few as it's documented interesting years in my youth, where I was kind of a rebel in the new country. And I should mention that this was just my mother and I that we went through the whole journey. I lost my dad when I was nine years old. And I was the only child. So, it was just me and my mom going on this crazy journey. And then slowly but surely I wised up, I went to school, and I went to university, eventually, worked construction. I did all kinds of crazy jobs, manual, menial labor. And then I ended up in the University of Alberta at that time in the science program left that went to Film School in Toronto, left that in the middle of the second year and started my own production company in Toronto, where we would get very, very low-budget music videos, kind of bam demos, more like it.

Vadim Perelman (06:17):
Then I moved to LA, and about three months being in LA, I got my first paying gig as a director, which was shockingly lucky and incredibly fortuitous for that then. Then just right away to the Oscars. Just kidding. There was a long, hard road. I started on doing commercials and music videos and did quite well in that. That was one of the directors of commercials in the world to this day. I have made about 350 of them, of the largest budgets and the largest corporations all over the world. And then at some point, I was very interesting how I found my first project. I was on a job, on a shoot in Rome, and it was the first time I'd been in Rome since I was literally living in the streets of Rome and being a little street child of Rome in my very early teen years. So I was at the airport and I picked up a book and that was the House of Sand and Fog. I picked up a book to read on a plane. It affected me so much that I got the rights and I really truly believe that that was something that I should make? and in a way I ended up shooting it.

Alex Romanovich (07:53):
Let me ask you a question right up front, that experience of immigration, somewhat dramatic for a teenager who's experiencing hardship, it must've made a tremendous impact on your life and the life of your family, your mom, and so forth. Did it ever enter into your mind to actually create something of that journey? Did you have an idea of actually creating a movie about something like this?

Vadim Perelman (08:40):
Many people have suggested it, that I do that because it is quite an interesting story. If I get into details, it would be even more interesting, shocking, fascinating, kind of immigrant tale. I don't want to be literal about it. I think what I do little bit by little bit is take little aspects of it. They'll tangential aspects, sometimes real aspects of my life experience in general, not just immigration, and put it into my films. I think The House of Sand and Fog has a lot of my life in it. The Persian Lessons has a lot of my life in a way, even though I've never been in a concentration camp, but it has a lot of similar metaphoric meaning to me. And I'm perfectly satisfied with just staying that way instead of doing an autobiography anyway.

Alex Romanovich (09:52):
I totally agree with you that I did notice, in watching all of the movies I've seen some aspects of it as well, I recognize some of that aspects. Not many people can recognize it unless they can relate on unless they can go through a similar type of experience. And obviously, your experiences are unique, and everyone's is, but I did recognize some of it. Nevertheless, I think it would be a fascinating story. How did that experience shape your entire life philosophy as it pertains to movies, as it pertains to your philosophy in life? And we'll talk more about, we'll explore more of your views, whether they're liberal or not. I've actually seen some of the other interviews and so forth. They have so many questions about that as well, but how did that experience shape you?

Vadim Perelman (11:02):
Now I'm looking at the screen here, and so there is "Global Edge". It gave me exactly that, it gave me a global edge. It gave me an outside perspective and an outsider's perspective on many things. And it made me hungrier, I think, especially in my youth when I was younger and trying to make it and trying to stand out from others, it gave me a really interesting perspective even on the Western, American way of life because I think as immigrants we see it differently. You really do. And sometimes it's hard to judge your own family, talking about Americans, who've been born there, but it's easier to see it from the outside. It made me hungrier in general, as I said, it made me more work harder, I guess, in a way.

Alex Romanovich (12:11):
So, you're hungrier or you're more hungrier, but yet you, based on that philosophy, you walked away from a number of different projects because of your conviction, because of that philosophy in life because you did not want to compromise certain things. Talk about that

Vadim Perelman (12:31):
I have a very specific attitude about my work. I think commercials when I do them, they don't have my name on it. They make me money. They're an easy school for me even to learn new techniques and to try different things. I don't put that under my guidelines, but my guidelines for the film are quite, quite stringent. I want to leave behind something that matters, I think, something that moves people, something that affects people and not just another credit, not just another line in theIMDb database. It's not about quantity for me. By being that way, by being obstinate, and choosy, and particular, whatever synonym you want to use, I've lost a lot of opportunities. I've turned down a lot of things that would've made me a lot of money. It would have given me a lot more fame than I have. And I'm just very specific that way. So, hungry doesn`t apply to films.

Alex Romanovich (13:56):
Let's talk a little bit about some of the films that you made, you produced, you directed. They seem to have a thread. We talked a little bit about this before, they seem to have a thread of unpredictability, to have a thread of destiny.

Vadim Perelman (14:22):
Those are two mutually opposing, destiny and predictability.

Alex Romanovich (14:27):
I mean, unless you know the destiny. We tend not to know that destiny, unfortunately. And we have no idea what's going to happen next. There's a lot of mystery. There's a lot of death. There's a lot of dark, there's a lot of drama. There's a lot of darkness. One can actually view the movies and say, Perlman actually has a lot of darkness in his soul. Tell our audience more about this. Is this the case?

Vadim Perelman (15:08):
Not really. It is important for me to elicit emotion, to elicit some sort of empathy for the characters and air, and call it tears as one emotion. And to do that, you have to raise the stakes every time in your story. And raising the stakes, it means raising the stakes for your characters, which quite often involves superdramatic situations for them, that obviously have death, illness, capture, imprisonment. I mean, all these things, I didn't invent that. It has been done by the Greeks many, many centuries ago, the Greek tragedies, where they took people and put them in very hardship, very personality trying situations where you have to decide what kind of person you are. I think that's what I like instead of making something that's trite, fluffy. I like to have an impact.

Alex Romanovich (16:21):
Impact the characters are constantly on the edge, but I would like to say as part of our podcast, that's what gives them the edge as well. That's what gives them the ability to survive. And then in the very latest feature film The Persian Lessons, the main character must think on his feet very quickly and adapt to the situation almost within seconds. And that's what gives him the survival. Is this something from your life? Is this something that you had to experience in your life?

Vadim Perelman (16:56):
Absolutely. I think something from your life as well. When we arrived in our new country, we had to learn the language, at least I did, and therefore we had to invent ourselves, we had to invent this. So, for people that don't know The Persian Lessons, which is the latest film, is about a Jewish guy, a young man who ends up saving his life from being shot by the Nazis by pretending that he's Persian. And one of the officers at the camp, at the transit cam wants to learn Farsi for whatever reason, so he takes him as a tutor. And so this kid has to teach him Farsi, the language he doesn't know, he has to make up Farsi, he doesn't know a single word. So, that's basically the plot of the film, a survival story.

Vadim Perelman (17:56):
And I feel there's a very, very close parallel to something I just discovered when I was making the film. I didn't even think of that. That's something I discovered now while giving interviews about supporting the film is that it's about me. When I arrived in Canada, I didn't know a single word of English. I had to pretend to know the language in order to fit in, in order to quote-unquote survive. And therefore I felt kind of like a fraud the same way the character in the film feels in relation to the other prisoners who are not surviving, who were being sent to Auschwitz, who were being killed trainloads and trainloads one after the other. And he stays and he survives by faking his own persona. In a strange parallel, obviously, not quite the same stakes, but in a strange parallel, I was surviving. I was faking my own persona in my immigration by trying not to stand out and trying to live on as a completely new person.

Alex Romanovich (19:19):
That's pretty amazing. It's so true though, that in order to survive we have to fake, we have to adapt, we have to do a lot of play a role. And I don't want to say pretend necessarily because that situation defines us, it makes us stronger. It makes us adapt to new rules. We learned something from it.

Vadim Perelman (19:49):
Alex, to this day, right now we are faking our accent, we're trying to smooth it out. We're trying to lose it when we are talking. So, to this day we're playing this role.

Alex Romanovich (20:07):
That is true. Speaking of which that's a great point. You've made movies in the United States. You've made movies in Eastern Europe. You made movies in Russia. You've made a TV series for which you won a number of awards in Russia as well, which was very well-known throughout the entire Eastern bloc. You are Oscar-nominated for two American movies. And you've lived in probably at least a dozen countries. What does it mean to you to be a global citizen? What does it mean for you not to have any borders, to speak multiple languages and basically feel comfortable almost anywhere you go?

Vadim Perelman (20:51):
I love it. I think it gives me freedom. I mean, it's a luxury that I wish a lot of people would have, the ability to move, the ability not to become stagnant, just see new opportunities, to see how the same things are perceived in different countries, it's quite interesting. And especially as a creative person, it gives me a lot of material, a lot of perspectives.

Alex Romanovich (21:26):
So, let's enter COVID, let's enter the pandemic 2020, let's look at the United States of America.

Vadim Perelman (21:36):
Where I entered it, by the way, because I came from the Berlin festival where my film was premiering in February 22nd of 2020, where there was absolutely no COVID. It was in China at the time. Maybe somewhere else, but nobody really publicized it yet. And the whole world gathered in Berlin for the festival. And I remember the lobby of my hotel, the Chinese, the Italians. I mean, it was crazy the whole world, crowds. I have to make my way like this through them. No masks yet. And this was February 22nd. So, having skated by that, without getting infected, I got on a plane and flew to LA and that's when I had to face the thing.

Alex Romanovich (22:35):
Now you being like many others being limited in your travels, having friends and family members all over the world. What sort of entered your mind? How were you going to plan or survive?

Vadim Perelman (22:53):
Definitely taking my pocketbooks. It's getting commercials offered all over the place for that. I can't go in many places. If I go, I can't really come back in Canada, apart from the certificate, we have to pay $2,000, spend three days in a hotel and then 14-day quarantine after that at home. So, it's like a big hassle too. $2,000 for upkeep in the hotel. That's what they make you pay. Apart from that in a strange way I haven't really felt a difference, apart from travel.

Vadim Perelman (23:46):
My day is pretty much the same. I'll wake up, I'll have a couple of Zoom meetings, and I did that before, mostly in Skype. There wasn't Zoom yet. By the way, my theory is that the people behind the whole coronavirus are the developers of Zoom application. If you follow the money, they're the ones behind it. I've been affected only I'm not able to see my kids as much, my parents, my mom and travel for work. Otherwise, it's all the same. I sit here, I read my books, I write, I edit. This is where my life is centered right now.

Alex Romanovich (24:38):
What can we expect from you next after two Oscar-nominated features, we don't know what's going to happen with The Persian Lessons, frankly, the world at large hasn't seen it yet.

Vadim Perelman (24:51):
Spain has seen it. It was a huge success in Spain, a gigantic success. In Germany, it was a big success. Those are theatrical releases, all of them. Somehow Spain managed to do it right now with reduced seating, but they still did it. We're getting amazing responses from people, some countries like the US and Canada are holding it. So, we're constantly grateful to them. I think it's a film that's going to be seen. I really do. And after that I have a project that I'm trying to get off the ground, it's already cast, essentially. We're just looking for money right now for an American project that's based on a famous novel, Russell Banks. And other than that, I'm looking constantly looking, reading,

Alex Romanovich (25:56):
Are you looking for scripts? Are you looking for ideas? Are you looking for cast?

Vadim Perelman (26:02):
I am looking for ideas, books. Somebody can recommend me a book and can be a movie, and so on. Mostly I think books are where I gained a lot of my inspiration, but ideas and scripts, maybe there's not that many good ready scripts, scripts you have to write. And especially for me, I have to write.

Alex Romanovich (26:26):
By the way, have you ever made a movie, or a series, or a feature based on somebody else's script?

Vadim Perelman (26:32):
The Persian Lessons is actually the first one. I did a lot of work on it, but the script still belongs to the original writer.

Alex Romanovich (26:49):
Let's go back to COVID, not COVID as the actual disease and the pandemic, but the circumstances. And our audience is global, global entrepreneurs, even some folks from the entertainment industry, even some of the filmmakers from my friends Jeffrey Merrihue MOFILM network and so forth. For a business person, for somebody who's managing an event, for somebody who is selling something, marketing something and so forth, I guess the replacement of face-to-face type of a relationship or communications with this, with Zoom, maybe was not as dramatic. Because in the business we always use Zoom and so forth, so on. But let's talk about doing a commercial. Let's talk about doing a movie, doing a feature film. What is one to do in this particular situation? How do you adapt?

Vadim Perelman (27:57):
You adapt. Casting you do this way now with Zoom and with self-tapes and so on. So, you don't have that immediate connection with the actor, while shooting, obviously, you can't do remotely, even though some people somehow can, but I can't looking at this and not being able to see out of the corner of my eye, what's happening in front of them. And I need that live connection. If it's something simple, maybe, but not a scene in a movie. It's tougher, but I think it's almost over. I really feel it. I'm very optimistic about it, I think in the middle of summer, we're going to see it go away.

Alex Romanovich (28:51):
I hope so. And I agree with you that it's not going to last forever. Obviously, I'm traveling to Florida tomorrow, as a matter of fact, to see my folks who have been vaccinated finally. I'm hearing Canada, which is where you are. The vaccination is not.

Vadim Perelman (29:11):
They've totally botched that, so it's not available. Right now they're getting some shipment. They haven't even started with the eighteen-year-olds in Canada. So, I don't know definite statistics, but it seems to be leveled quite a bit. Vancouver, where I live, has the restrooms open, every restroom. It's pretty much open malls

Alex Romanovich (29:52):
From your personal situation right now, where you have to be in Vancouver. What are your plans for travel next?

Vadim Perelman (29:59):
Well, I absolutely have to go to see my kids in LA. I miss them tremendously. I haven't seen them since I left LA in April of last year. But Moscow wants me desperately for some projects and some things, short-chart products, pilots and commercials.

Alex Romanovich (30:31):
You also stayed in Central, Eastern Europe, I believe. You deal with Prague, Czech Republic. Actually, my wife is from Prague and I've lived in Prague. It's most amazing city. One of my favorite cities in Central Europe. for some reason the former Soviet ex-pats, they prefer this place. They love it.

Vadim Perelman (30:57):
Perfectly in between, what we're used to and America. But to me it's a charming place.

Alex Romanovich (31:05):
But it's a great movie-making place, correct? And have you done something in Central, Eastern Europe?

Vadim Perelman (31:14):
I've done a ton of commercials in Prague. That's how I discovered Prague. In 2006, I believe, I had a commercial there.

Alex Romanovich (31:24):
And then there was some interesting features done in Kyiv. I visit even now and then, but Kyiv is still a great destination from what I understand for movie-making, commercial-making as well.

Vadim Perelman (31:40):
For movie-making for sure.

Alex Romanovich (31:44):
Well, Miley Cyrus did her little music feature for the song. I mean, from a cost standpoint, maybe,from an economic standpoint, that's how in Europe Prague sort of gained popularity. Do you see the same thing happening with Kyiv, with Ukraine?

Vadim Perelman (32:07):
My friends have a production service that services the production of a lot of commercials movies. They're doing really well. I think it's a great place for people to save some money and not lose the level of production that you have, a lot more for your buck.

Alex Romanovich (32:38):
I would love to continue this conversation. We tend to have very short conversations, half-hour, 45 minutes or whatever, but your story is such an amazing story. I would love for you to weigh in on some of the discussions and some of the opinions and so forth. So, we'd love to extend an invitation to continue those discussions and to continue to talk about movies, to talk about stories, to talk about your life, the life of your family, and so forth. And I deeply appreciate you coming on board with us and doing this interview. Our audience will be very interested to know that we will be featuring a lot of the links. As soon as the movie is going to be available, the very latest one, we will be also pointing you in all the different directions. I'm assuming it's going to be available online as well, obviously, but it's definitely something that belongs on Netflix, on Amazon prime, on HBO max, all of the other well-known entities and based on what I've seen, it's definitely Oscar, great material. So, I'm hoping that it will be nominated as well.

Vadim Perelman (33:54):
Thank you so much.

Alex Romanovich (33:56):
And we're hoping to see you and talk to you soon.