Russian Film Week, the biggest Russian film and culture event abroad, will take place from December 6th till December 13th. Traditionally screenings were organized in the best cinemas across London, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburg and each year the festival gathers more than 20,000 visitors and guests globally. This year the event will be held online on The Russian Film Week At Home platform (https://russianfilmweek.muvi.com), allowing viewers from all over the world to see the best of Russian cinema 2020.
Russian Film Week is an annual event held in the UK featuring the most exciting and critically acclaimed films made by Russian directors or Russia-themed films produced elsewhere in the world. The festival culminates in the Golden Unicorn Awards ceremony designed to recognise excellence in various nominations, including the Best Foreign Film About Russia. The RFW and The Golden Unicorn Awards aim to promote Russian film to international audiences and build cultural links between Russia and the UK. Winners of previous years include Anna Mikhalkova, Sergey Livnev, Aleksey Serebryakov and others.
Due to the global pandemic and travel restrictions, founder and general producer of RFW, general sponsor of the event Kasperky and co-organizer of the festival Synergy Corporation decided to run the RFW 2020 in online format.
“In the last four years, Russian Film Week has made it into the top five of the United Kingdom’s biggest nationally focused film festivals. Despite the global pandemic, it was important for us to hold the festival this year. I am delighted to present - Russian Film Week Online Edition. I am especially pleased to have the opportunity to expand our festival to new audiences outside of the UK, building cross-cultural bridges between Russia and the rest of the world. We would like to thank our many sponsors, partners and supporters who made this year’s festival possible in extraordinary circumstances,” said Filip Perkon, founder and general producer of Russian Film Week.
Vadim Lobov, partner of RFW 2020, president of Synergy Corporation, also says that art is becoming particularly important in the context of cultural unification: "Cinema forms the perception of the world, moral education and illustrates the current state of affairs. At the moment, in the period of a pandemic and closed borders between countries, it is especially important to preserve the possibility of cultural exchange, to broadcast Russian films abroad in order to allow European viewers to feel our national identity, the peculiarities of our film narratives and views on certain life situations."
The festival presents 9 feature films, 2 documentaries and 17 short films. Despite a relatively small number of films in RFW-2020 compared to previous years, the programme of the festival will show the diversity of Russian cinema.
The festival will be opened by the drama The Whaler Boy, followed by a Q&A with the director Philip Yuriev and producer Alexey Uchitel. The closing film One Breath will be presented by film director Elena Khazanova.
Apart from the films, the festival offers a variety of masterclasses. In Russia they will be broadcast on digital platform Synergy.Online provided by the festival’s partner Synergy Corporation. Speakers of the masterclasses include British actor and the Golden Globe winner Brian Cox, renown European and Russian actor, filmmaker and producer Danila Kozlovsky, acclaimed writer Dmitry Glukhovsky and actor Alexander Kuznetsov
On December 9, the RFW will host the Casting Bridge, an online event gathering actors, casting directors and filmmakers from Russia, Europe and the UK for further cooperation in various international film projects.
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Main event website: http://www.russianfilmweek.org
Festival programme: http://www.russianfilmweek.org/index.php?id=63&year=2020&pageid=3&parent=21
Official poster: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuebCG4msnLC3wF_XdRIPgY3j56n?e=X48b2q
Official trailer: https://youtu.be/CpwS5iQqeB0
Trailer for downloads: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AuebCG4msnLC3Wxt4D9nFnPHTwYA?e=cGZr74
Stills from films: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ALynjC1a4nA0%2Dko&id=C272B2266E089BE7%2111801&cid=C272B2266E089BE7
Most of the screenings will be shown on https://russianfilmweek.muvi.com/
Opening and closing films will be shown on the new platform https://watchbeem.com
Films included in the programme:
FEATURES (Director, Region Available):
1. Kalashnikov (dir.K.Buslov), UK and Europe
2. The Whaler Boy (dir. F.Yuriev), UK
3. One Breath (dir. E.Khazanova), UK
4. Tsoy (dir.A.Uchitel), UK
5. Ice 2 (dir. Z.Kryzhovnikov),UK
6. Seven Wishes (dir. D. Charusha), UK and Europe
7. Hotel Belgrade (dir. K. Statskiy), UK
8. Lethal Illusions (dir. O. Asadulin),UK
9. Streltsov (dir. I.Uchitel), UK
DOCS (Director, Region Available)
1. From Kurils with Love (dir. Taylor Rees), All world
2. Brain. Evolution (dir.Y.Kiseleva), UK
SHORTS (Director, Region Available)
1. Soup (dir. I. Sukhorukova), UK
2. The Gift (dir. R. Kudoyarov), UK and Europe
3. Friends (dir. T. Ivashkina), UK
4. Stream (dir. A. Dianova), UK
5. The Right to Life (dir. O. Koleva), UK and Europe
6. 16/8 (dir. Sasha Paracels) , UK and Europe
7. Thank you, Coach! (dir. N. Tarasov), UK and Europe
8. Meshes (dir. N. Sadokov), UK and Europe
9. It’s Said (dir. N. Jakovleva), UK
10. The Important Day (dir. Olesia Aleinikova), UK
11. Sulphur (dir. Lana Vlady), UK
12. Thank you! (dir. Maria Shulgina), UK and Europe
13. Talent (dir. O. Ageychev), UK and Europe
14. The Robbers Losers (dir. A. Bulatov),UK
15. It doesn’t matter (dir. Revaz Gigineishvili),UK and Europe
16. Nuartier (dir. E. Scherbakova), Worldwide
17. The Witch & the Baby (dir. E. Golubeva), UK