A week of art house films that is held annually at the 2morrow Film Festival is starting its work in the Russian capital. This year’s edition focuses on low-budget movies which managed to convey a strong message without any frills.
The festival will open on Tuesday with a film by Lynne Ramsay from Scotland and starring Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin. Closing the film marathon will be Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel by Alex Stapleton from the USA.
This year the festival’s program will be united with a single main theme of confession and self reflection. The main competition program will feature 8.5 films – to be more specific there will be eight features and one short movie. The latter is a special one, which is in fact a monologue of a man who returns to his home village in Ryazan Region after last year’s severe fires to look for his cat.
The other eight nominees of the main program feature several of the world’s renowned festival participants, such as Kim Ki-Duk’s Arirang, the winner of the Special Mention award at Cannes.
The movie by Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi This Is Not a Film, which was premiered at Cannes, will also be screened in Moscow, and not just to highlight the filmmaking qualities of the director, but also to show sympathy for his endless persecution by the Iranian authorities. He was sentenced to six years in prison and a 20-year ban from his profession in cinema, despite the protests of the international filmmakers, diplomatic and art communities.
Other international festivals participants’ films on the menu will include Crulic – a documentary animation by Romanian Anca Damian and The Sun-Beaten Path by Sonthar Gyal, both screened in Locarno; Venice’s Horizons program participant Birmingham Ornament, made by Russian directors Andrey Silvestrov and Yury Leiderman; Norwegian Andre Ovredal’s Troll Hunter; and Calvet, by French filmmaker Dominic Allan.
Apart from the main program the festival will also offer several others, including musical, political, and tribute sections.
The winner of the festival this year will be determined solely by the visitors, who will be offered the chance to vote after the screenings. The art house film week will run in Moscow’s Rolan, Pioneer, Five Stars on Novokuznetskaya and 35 MM cinemas through October 23.