A Russian television commercial miniseries World History. Bank Imperial (Всемирная история. Банк Империал), advertising Bank Imperial and aired in 1992—1997. The series was directed and produced by Timur Bekmambetov, and consisted of 18 history-themed spots with an average running time of one minute.
Students in Intermediate Russian class were on a mission to explore Russian history on their own in a creative way. Bekmambetov’s exclusive advertising campaign and his other passion projects helped jump-start the excitement in experimenting with Russian.
What do we know about Timur Bekmambetov?
He began his career in filming as one of the directors of Bank Imperial’s popular World History. Bank Imperial commercials before founding the Bazelevs Group Bekmambetov in 1994. In 2004, he created the first Russian blockbuster/a vampire movie Night Watch (Ночной дозор), in 2006 – Day Watch (Дневной дозор). These films enjoyed unprecedented success in Russia; first Night Watch and then Day Watch broke all domestic Russian box office records, bringing both the films and their director, Timur Bekmambetov, to the attention of international distribution companies.
Now the legend of Russian cinema and television, commonly regarded as one of the most commercially successful directors of early 21th century, Timur Bekmambetov lives in the US, in Walt Disney’s former home in Hollywood, and he completely shifted his perspective on the language of movies. Bekmambetov is always making movies reflecting our new reality. Recently he came to realization that half of our life are happening on screen today, we build lives, careers and relationships around them; communicate through them; connect through them; learn about the world from them. As a visionary leader, Bekmambetov has seen the future of the movies in his passion project, Screenlife, a developing technology in which stories are told through the lens of our everyday lives via computer screens. With his Screenlife software, Bekmambetov has already produced several well-received projects.