- What do directors of cinemas dream about, how does occupational hazard affect cinema trips and who is the best spectator in the cinema? Oleksander Antonov, director of Multiplex at “Prospekt” shopping mall, one of the most successful shopping malls in the network, not only from the viewpoint of attendance, but also from the viewpoint of sale of popcorn, in a blitz interview to Weekend told about the complexity of the schedule and his favorite films.

- About what profession did you dream when you were a child?
- Unlike those children who aspired to become militiamen and cosmonauts, I wanted to become a leader - a director, a chief and even a president. Most of people around me consider that a leader is a serious person, reviewing papers and shouting at subordinates. But for me a leader is a person who leads his/her team, who has a positive impact over a working process and helps people to achieve success. I wanted to become such a person from the very childhood. I can’t say that I’ve realized my dreams to the fullest extent, but I became a person I wanted to become.

- How do you feel working on the position of a director of a successful cinema?
- It is very difficult because of the constant stress and lack of free time, because a director is busy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One can’t be negligent in his work, can’t hang up. Sometimes I envy those people, who work from 9.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m., but my work is my choice and I’m proud of it. It brings me a lot of benefits, for example, satisfied guests, especially children

- How often do you go to the cinema? 
- Being a director of the cinema, I distinguish between cinema as a job and cinema as an entertainment. If it is a job, one can’t enjoy the whole show, he/she have to pay attention to work-related issues, to look for defects, trying to find something wrong and to assess it. As a result, one judges the work of the cinema in general, not the movie as such. However, from time to time I manage to escape from the routine, watching a movie and enjoying art. Unfortunately, I can’t afford this often, but approximately twice per month I escape from the reality for a couple of hours.

- What is your favorite movie and what movie you would never see?
- It's hard to answer this question. I like a lot of movies, each genre is good in its own way, it is impossible to choose one of them. From modern classics I like "The Eighth Mile", "The Shawshank Redemption", "Knockin' on Heaven’s Door", "Star wars" - these films are masterpieces that once rocked the word of the viewers. It's more difficult to choose from new movies, last year I liked Guy Ritchie's film "King Arthur" – it is an interesting story about a guy who was nobody, but it happened that he found out that he was a member of a royal family, his life changed - and it was an explosion of action.

- What does your favorite spectator look like? 
- I like children visiting cinema - they bring a lot of smiles and sincere emotions. Adults are less emotional, so it's hard to guess whether they liked the film or not. But on a child's face one can read everything, and this is really important.

- What is your favorite popcorn?
- It may seem strange, but working in this field for more than seven years, I can’t choose one taste; I always want to try something new. There are standard tastes: salty, with cheese, bacon and with caramel - they taste superb. I think, I take popcorn with bacon taste most often.