Ilya Viktorovich Naishuller is a Russian musician and filmmaker. He is the founder of the Russian indie rock bandBiting Elbows and production company Versus Pictures. He is also notable for directing, producing, writing the script, acting and composing the music for the 2015 film Hardcore Henry.
Early Life and Career
Naishuller was born in Russia, the son of an ethnically Russian surgeon mother and a Jewish businessman father, but from the ages of seven to fourteen he lived with his mother in London. after which, they returned to Russia. He studied at the Tisch School of the Arts, but he left after a short time, since it appeared "useless" to him. However, he met various filmmakers, some of whom he would collaborate with later. In 1999, with some fellow students, Naishuller founded his first band which soon broke up. In 2008, he founded the rock band Biting Elbows, where he is a singer and guitarist. In 2011, he appeared in the EP Dope Fiend Massacre and the debut album Biting Elbows. In 2013, Naishuller appeared in the single Bad Motherfucker, where he also directed the music video. The first-person amateur video went on to be a viral hit online with over 20 million views and was, among others, praised by Darren Aronofsky. In the same year he took up acting, playing a small role in the Roman Karimov crime comedy All at Once. Shortly thereafter, Naishuller began shooting his film-directing debut Hardcore, later renamed Hardcore Henry. The action movie was produced by Timur Bekmambetov, Inga Vainshtein Smith, and Ekaterina Kononenko and featured supporting roles from Sharlto Copley and Tim Roth. Naishuller functioned as a screenwriter, director, producer and also took on a role as an actor. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015, and was released theatrically by STXfilms on April 8, 2016. It went on to gross $14.3 million USD, becoming one of the most successful Russian films since 1991. On the same day, Naishuller, along with Brain Philipson and Will Stewart released a comic book titled Hardcore Akan #1 that serves as an origin story for the main antagonist of Hardcore Henry.
