Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Ignatiy Igorevich Vishnevetsky (; ; born September 5, 1986) is a Russian-American film critic, essayist, and columnist. He has worked as a staff film critic for The A.V. Club and written for Mubi.com and the Chicago Reader.

Vishnevetsky co-hosted Roger Ebert Presents: At the Movies, a nationally syndicated film criticism television show, with Christy Lemire.

Early life and education Vishnevetsky was born in Moscow, the son of Russian poet Igor Vishnevetsky. He has said that his paternal ancestors were Don Cossacks, and he is of Polish descent through his maternal ancestry. He moved to the United States at the age of eight, following his parents' divorce. Although he did not formally study English in school while living in Russia, Vishnevetsky claims that he learned the language "entirely from TV and American TV commercials I watched constantly". and then moved to Chicago, He was involved in a screening space called North Western Avenue, whose participants later co-founded the film website Cine-File.info, to which Vishnevetsky contributed.

In 2006, Vishnevetsky wrote and directed a 45-minute short film; he also served as the film's editor and cinematographer. Soon after a final cut was completed, a hard drive failure destroyed much of the footage.

Critical style He has described himself as "more of an optimist for the future of cinema than for the future of movies", stating that in his view the two were not synonymous. Comparing Vishnevetsky with his co-host, Christy Lemire, Time writer Steven James Snyder wrote that Lemire was "more preoccupied with finesse and plot points", while Vishnevetsky was "more interested in structure, experimentation and mood".

Preferences In the February 11, 2011, episode of Ebert Presents At the Movies, Vishnevetsky stated that the greatest influence on his work as a critic was Jean-Luc Godard's video project Histoire(s) du cinéma. In the same episode, he named the silent films True Heart Susie and Foolish Wives; the Holocaust documentary Shoah; and Jacques Tati's Playtime as the movies that made him want to become a film critic.

Vishnevetsky participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed ten of his favorite films as follows: Blow Out, Days of Being Wild, Dead or Alive 2: Birds, Hotel America, The Lady from Shanghai, Modern Romance, Mysteries of Lisbon, Red Viburnum, RoboCop, and Some Came Running. Vishnevetsky compiled his list by writing 90 of his favorite titles on scraps of paper and then drawing ten from a bowl. and obtained American citizenship in 2017. , he lives in Chicago. They have two children together.