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Film Festivals,

The Establishing Shot: 5th Russian Film Festival, London 4 – 13 November

Here at The Establishing Shot we love a good film festival and while we were in the Maldives seeking underwater life we got the heads the heads up on another great film festival taking place in London soon to add to your calendar.

Russian cinema has come along way from the propagandist Kino-Pravda and Sergei Eisenstein's ground breaking Battleship Potemkin to the 5th Russian Film Festival to be held in London 4 – 13 November, 2011.

The Russian Film Festival is an important annual event for Russians living in London and a unique window onto today’s Russia for a British audience and the programme of the 5th Russian Film Festival will include the 10 best Russian feature films of the year, made by a new generation of Russian film directors. All films have received recognition at prestigious international and national festivals and have been specially selected for the Russian Film Festival by the programme director, Andrei Plakhov, President of FIPRESCI. Further, the Russian Film Festival in London is the only event where all these acclaimed films will be shown in one single place and presented by their world famous directors and actors, who will join us for Q&As and discussions.

The festival gives a platform to Russia’s new wave of filmmakers and their award winning films and will include features like:

On Friday 4th November, the 5th Russian Film Festival opens with the UK premiere of Generation P, the adaptation of Victor Pelevin’s cult novel. The film will be presented by director Victor Ginzburg and leading actors. The film portrays the complex and often absurd story of how today’s Russia came into being – and the festival is delighted to be showing this film on Russian National Unity Day.


Generation P / Generation П
While the Soviet Union was falling apart at the seams, living out its final days, Western brands began rapidly flooding the post-Soviet market. With his nose to the ground, main character Babilen Tatarsky sets up his own advertising agency with a mission to popularise new products, helped by fun, catchy slogans adapted for the “Soviet mentality”. And so begins a new era. An era of destroying outdated ideals. The youth brought up on these advertising captions will later become known as “generation Pepsi”.

Elena / Елена
From the director of acclaimed films The Return and The Banishment, Elena is Andrei Zvyagintsev’s next success story. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 CannesFilm Festival, Elena tells the story of a timid housewife and former nurse, and her relationship with her aging husband and businessman, Vladimir After he has a heart attack, he chooses for the inheritance to go to his daughter from a previous marriage, rather than Elena. The enthralling film follows her as she is forced into acts she would never normally have contemplated.

Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Writer: Oleg Negin (screenplay)
Stars: Yelena Lyadova, Nadezhda Markina and Aleksey Rozin

Indifference / Безразличие
Oleg Fliangolts began work on Indifference  in 1989, a romantic youth in love with Italian cinema, and came back to the project some twenty years later using modern technology. The film is a nostalgic look at the social problems encountered by the Moscow youth of the 1960s, spliced with romance and escapism. The story unfolds over several days in the life of a young man by the name of Petya, who has fallen in love with a mature and experienced girl, who herself cannot understand her feelings.

The youthful and wonderfully creative atmosphere of the original work has been retained and the film has been acclaimed by critics, receiving the Grand Prix at the Kinotavr Film Festival 2011.

Director: Oleg Fliangolts

Twilight Portrait / Портрет в сумерках
Angelina Nikonova’s highly impressive debut, written with Olga Dykhovichnaya who plays the central character of Marina, is a film that will provoke and challenge the audience’s reaction with a daring, unconventional subject matter.Marina, a darkly fascinating protagonist, confuses yet intrigues with her non-linear behaviour, moving through the Moscow night as her ambiguous intentions are slowly revealed. She has everything a modern day Muscovite wants, yet she is trapped in a world where she exerts no power. Drifting from situations, she finally plunges into a physical nightmare with mental repercussions, becoming a former shadow of herself. This is not only a portrait of Marina, but an interpretation of modern day Russia itself.

Director: Angelina Nikonova
Writers: Olga Dykhovichnaya, Angelina Nikonova
Stars: Sergei Borisov, Olga Dykhovichnaya and Sergei Golyudov

Innocent Saturday / В Субботу
Innocent Saturday is a slice of Soviet history, recreating the 36 hours between the explosion of Chernobyl and the start of the evacuation. Initially the characters attempt to leave as fear sets in, but instead a fast paced narrative follows as they continue their normal lives, staying behind for an energetic wedding on that Saturday.

Director: Aleksandr Mindadze
Writer: Aleksandr Mindadze (screenplay)
Stars: Anton Shagin, Svetlana Smirnova and Stanislav Ryadinskiy

Gromozeka
“I am so unlucky in life!” exclaims Gromozeka; three friends, brought together in their youth by this catchphrase - even naming their band after this animated character - have lost touch with each other as they have grown older, but no wiser. Kott’s dark humoured creation follows these three men as their lives unravel and unknowingly cross again as they struggle with ordinary life and nostalgia in contemporary Moscow.

Director: Vladimir Kott
Writer: Vladimir Kott
Stars: Luisa-Gabriella Brovina

Hunter / Охотник / Okhotnik
Hunter is a tense drama that follows Ivan, a farmer who is passionate about hunting. He is loyal to his farm and family but this calm life is shaken when two female prisoners on work release come to the farm.

Director: Bakur Bakuradze
Writers: Bakur Bakuradze (screenplay), Ilya Malakhova
Stars: Gera Avdochenok, Mikhail Barskovich and Vladimir Degilev

Target / Мишень / Mishen
With the screenplay written by Vladimir Sorokin, Target is a philosophical futuristic look at Russia in 2020. A small group of the upper classes, with everything at their disposal, decide to reach for more by visiting an abandoned astrophysics site. This should supposedly enrich their lives but in fact takes them far away from the secure environment they all know.

In the year 2020, a group of wealthy Moscovites travel to an abandoned astrophysics complex, rumoured to have enough power to halt the process of ageing

Director: Alexander Zeldovich
Writers: Vladimir Sorokin, Alexander Zeldovich
Stars: Vitaly Kishchenko, Danila Kozlovskiy and Nina Loshchinina


Documentaries
Vitaly Mansky, Russia's master of documentary film, has put together a striking selection of contemporary Russian documentaries by women and about women. In addition we will be holding a special screening of short films including under the radar works by some of Russia's best directors. There will also be the ever popular comprehensive and diverse programme of animation, ready to enchant adults and children alike with its charm and imagination.

For this year’s documentary programme we present four outstanding young women directors and their films on women’s lives in today’s Russia. The programme is curated and presented by Vitaly Mansky. We are also delighted to welcome Alyona Polunina, who will introduce her film, Woman on top.

Award-winning documentary maker Vitaly Mansky will present his film Patria o Muerte, filmed in Cuba.

Patria o Muerte / Родина или смерть
What does a person imagine when they hear about Cuba? Especially those who have never been to this sea-locked state in the Caribbean basin. They probably think of cabriolets driven by glowing fair-haired men in colorful shirts drinking cocktails and dancing with mulatto ladies, the endless ocean reflected in their eyes. In reality there only exists the endless ocean that cuts the island from the rest of the world. It is hard to find any other country where the discrepancy between its image and reality is as huge as on Cuba.

For more than 50 years the state has been following the battle-cry of the winning revolution - “Patria o Muerte”. For more than 50 years the battle-cry has been a daily dilemma for several Cuban generations.

Our movie is about people who were born before the revolution and now are coming closer to the end of their lives when it becomes clear that for them “Motherland” equals “Death”.

Director: Vitaly Mansky


Animation
As part of our main programme we are proud to present a comprehensive and diverse range of animation ready to enchant adults and children alike with its charm and imagination. Among the feature length animations, The Women’s Day Gift / Подарок has won various prizes for its enchanting tale of a mother who helps her son fulfil his dream.

Special Guests
We are delighted that Russian film directors and actors will be joining us for Q&As and to introduce their films. Among them are Victor Ginzburg, Sergei Selyanov, Andrei Plakhov, Vitaly Mansky, Artem Vasiliev.


The Establishing Shot: 5th Russian Film Festival, London 4 – 13 November

Where:
Apollo West End Cinema, 19 Regent Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 4LR

When:
The 5th Russian Film Festival runs from 4 – 13 November, 2011.

More info:
For the full 5th Russian Film Festival programme and information head over to: http://russianfilmfestival.co.uk/ for tickets head to: www.apollocinemas.co.uk (0871 220 6000)