My name is Shari Burckhardt. I recently signed on with VM Productions to help with their social media marketing campaign for their current movie project: Dostoyevsky Reimagined: The Making of Notes from the New World (Dostoyevsky Reimagined – Behind the Scenes [BTS], for short) . This is a documentary on the making of their award winning film which is based on Dostoyevsky’s novel Notes from the Underground.

I freely, and somewhat shamefully, admit I have never read anything by Dostoyevsky. When I confessed this to my husband, who as it turns out, has been reading Dostoyevsky since he was a teenager, I was promptly given a reading list of titles I need to acquire and read immediately. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Amazon has several free Kindle editions of most of Dostoyevsky’s works so I was at least able to complete the acquisition part of my assignment fairly quickly.

When I accepted this job it was mainly because I was looking for something to do to refresh my writing portfolio. I had moved away from doing much writing and had started studying nutrition to change careers to health care. But after getting married in 2013 and moving from Wichita, Kansas to Sonderborg, Denmark, I was forced to make drastic career changes. I do not speak Danish and when you do not speak the local language it can make finding employment difficult, to say the least. So I turned to something familiar that I could do remotely, writing. Which is what led me to VM Productions.

Now, it might seem odd to work for a film company where the a majority of their films are based on the works of an author I have never read. But that is the great thing about good art. It always stands alone as a great work regardless of the inspiration. While being a fan of Dostoyevsky’s work will give you a greater appreciation for the films by VM Productions it is not a prerequisite. When I started reviewing the information for this documentary Dostoyevsky Reimagined – BTS I became fascinated.

When the opening lines on the movie’s home page reads: SOMEONE — OR SOMETHING — DID NOT WANT THIS MOVIE MADE … well, that does tend to get your attention. It goes on to say, Notes from the New World had all the hallmarks of a thriller: betrayal and abandonment, lies and innuendo, colleagues caught up in a mysterious ancient cult, and a side project gone terribly wrong. But these occurrences were not part of the script; they took place in real life behind the scenes of the production. I don’t know about you, but after reading that I wanted to know more.

I truly believe this movie has something to interest everyone. You will love this movie if you are interested in at least one of these things:

• Documentaries
• Dostoyevsky’s work
• Modern adaptions of classic literature
• The behind the scenes process of how an indie film is made
• True crime: missing persons’ cases, allegations of  mafia connections and prostitution
• Secret societies
• Conspiracy theories
• Reality entertainment

I could go on, and in time I will expand this list as I delve deeper into the true-life drama that took place during the making of Notes from the New World. If what I have read so far is any indication, my exploration into the facts behind Dostoyevsky Reimagined – BTS is going to be a fascinating journey, one which I will gladly share here, with you, our readers. Over the next several weeks I will be posting more in-depth blogs about each of these fascinating aspects that make up Dostoyevsky Reimagined – BTS. I hope you will join me in my pilgrimage of discovery but if you feel you cannot wait for my posts there are several information sources where you can beginning your own investigation of this film.

Please join us and sign up for our mailing list  and follow us on our pages to keep up to date on all new developments. Be sure to share your thoughts with us, who knows, maybe you will be the one to figure out the mysteries behind Dostoyevsky Reimainged – BTS.

Visit me at home: Dostoyevsky Reimagined: The Making of Notes from the New World

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