Yulia Shagelman on what to watch at the 31st Russian Film Festival in Vyborg

The 31st Russian Film Festival opens in Vyborg, formerly known as Window to Europe. Now it is simply called “Vyborg” – the organizing committee explains this change by saying that “in the light of the events taking place in the world” he would not want “the name of the festival to provoke controversy.” Nevertheless, its slogan remained the same: “Russian cinema is a forecast for tomorrow”, and more than 80 participating films will try their best to match it. About what can be seen at the festival from 4 to 11 August, tells Yulia Shagelman.

Presenting the program and the jury of the festival at a press conference at the end of July, its organizers emphasized their intention to continue the traditions that have developed over its thirty-year history, as well as to honor the memory of one of its founders and permanent president for the past twenty years – film critic and film critic Armen Medvedev, who passed away last year. Following him, “Vyborg” still relies on “a friendly atmosphere and whimsical content.” And the name of Medvedev will now be borne by one of the festival programs – the competition “Vyborg Account”, the winner of which is determined by audience voting. It includes four films that have already participated in other Russian film screenings: “The Edge of a Broken Moon” by Svetlana Samoshina, “Secret Attraction” by Stasia Venkova, “Don’t Bury Me Without Ivan” by Lyubov Borisova and “How to Fix a Bicycle” by Nikandr Fedorov.

There are traditionally three main competitive programs in Vyborg: feature, documentary and animation. The jury of the first of them was headed by director Sergei Ursulyak, and screenwriter and producer Andrei Zolotarev, actress Daria Yekamasova, film critic Yegor Moskvitin and Olga Gnedich, who managed to be an actress, director, screenwriter, and cameraman in her professional life, will evaluate the films together with him. , and an editor. Director, screenwriter and producer Yevgeny Grigoriev became the chairman of the jury of the non-fiction film competition, and animator Denis Chernov became the chairman of the animation film competition.

According to the program director of Vyborg Andrey Apostolov, the trends of this year’s program are genre diversity and focus on bright acting. The festival will be opened by Oksana Bychkova’s film “Nina”, starring Julia Peresild and Evgeny Tsyganov. The director has a lot to do with Vyborg – it was here that her debut, the romantic comedy Piter FM, was presented in 2006, and her second film, Plus One, in 2008. The new film, which premiered this year at the Shanghai International Film Festival, tells the story of a woman who leaves her quiet life to meet her former lover in Tbilisi.

Bychkova’s tape will be included in the feature film competition, which includes 11 films in total, including four debuts. Svetlana Filippova has previously participated in the Vyborg festival with animation works, and now she has brought here her first feature film Lisbon, which tells about the conflict of generations in a broken family. Other directors debuting in the competition: Ilya Malakhova with the film “Hello, Mom”, whose heroine lives in hope for the return of her long-lost mother, Sergei Ilyutin with the drama of growing up “The First Summer” and Alexei Stepanov, whose film “Octopus” is dedicated to the theme of living and understanding psychological trauma.

In addition to them, the competition program included a film adaptation of Alexander Volodin’s story “Blonde”, staged by Pavel Mirzoev, “Lunatics” by Yuri Moroz, “Light” by Anton Kolomeyets, “One Day” by Stas Ivanov and “Vacation in September” by Roman Mikhailov – already the fourth film shot mathematician, philosopher, writer, and now also a prolific director in just two less than two years. According to another Vyborg tradition, the main competition was not without Yakut cinema: it is represented by Nikandr Fedorov’s “Fight” about wrestler Vyacheslav Karpov, the first champion of the USSR, originally from Yakutia.

15 films participate in the non-fiction film competition, and 27 animated films. In addition, this year the organizers of the Vyborg festival for the first time joined the serial boom: as part of the out-of-competition program “Autumn Premieres”, the first episode of the new show of the Premier online cinema “Kill Rita” will be shown . The festival will be closed by the film directed by Karen Oganesyan and Valery Belotserkovsky “It happens to people” with an impressive cast, including Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Yuri Stoyanov, Galina Polskikh, Daria Ursulyak, Lyubov Tolkalina and other famous artists. What is there with the forecast about the future of Russian cinema – it is rather difficult to judge now, but Vyborg reflects its present quite adequately.