‘‘THE SERVANT OF NATION’’ | INTERVIEW
“THE SERVANT OF NATION”
“When things are really bad, the only thing you can do is to laugh” – said
once Jim Carrey & was pretty right! For many centuries the topic of social
problems of humanity has been raised by artists and writers. And it’s really
good, when with the help of irony one could affect the problem or even
contribute to problem’s solution.
Ukrainian people set heart on getting rid of corruption, so sooner or later
some creative work with this topic should appear. And recently it occurred!
So we are really glad to write in this edition about “The Servant of Nation”TV series by famous & successful Ukrainian studio Kvartal-95. The motto
of the series is “The History of the next president”. The premiere of the first
season (24 episodes) was held at the Ukrainian TV channel “1 + 1” November
16, 2015.
The story is about ordinary divorced history teacher, who lives with his
parents, but suddenly begins a completely new life… as a president!
Even after the first series of “public servants” appeared on TV screens,
the results exceeded all expectations - the series has become the leader
of TV broadcast and scored the highest rating of the fall season in its
slot (approximately 10.4%, and 26% of the audience aged 18-54). So we
decided not to postpone the opportunity to meet the authors, and they
gladly agreed to answer our questions.
Vladimir Zelenskiy
Studio Kvartal 95
“The humor is considered to be
authentic and hard to sell. Let
me disagree here. If the humor is
about core values – love, family,
friendship, relationships, desire for
normal life and honest leaders –
it’s about humanistic standards
obvious worldwide”.
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SSTR: For Ukrainians, the series The Servant of Nation is like
laughter through tears. How did you come up with the idea? Should
it be regarded as a wish to show how we look from some distance
away while falling into the same trap?
Kvartal 95: An idea of this project occurred to us (let`s emphasize it
is original) about 8 years ago. It is based on our wish to live in country
without all-level corruption, in a country where authorities respect people
and where politicians work not to
enrich themselves but for the nation.
Hence our first working title was The
Young Country. The idea ripened,
we grew older, wiser and more
experienced, and the country went
through some dramatic events. One
moment we realized this topic is of
national current interest. That is how
our history teacher – an honest rankand-filer – went down in history too,
when he suddenly became a President. For now only in series (smiles). Our
aim was not to show us falling into the same trap. We were to show people
who want honest government without corruption and nepotism. All of us
have to change somehow for our society to be civilized. For instance, not
to bribe, not to graft and work honestly.
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