Going AWOL

Before going to film school, Sergey Tselikov spent four years at the Naval Academy in St Petersburg. From being a teenager, the director knew that he needed something other than just office routine. This helped to define many aspects of his life as a young man. The attractions of life at sea and the chance to see the world were all part of a journey of self-discovery. Sergey tried his hand at various art forms before deciding to become a director. According to Sergey, nothing had ever fascinated him so much as the possibility of telling a story using the language of cinema, filming and thinking through how to stage a scene. As a result, in his fifth year of studies, Sergey decided on a change of course. He quit the Naval Academy and enrolled in the Directing Faculty at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.