September 21, 12–9 PM
The Pavilion at New Holland Island will host The St. Petersburg and Moscow Schools of New Cinema Day on September 21. During the day, the visitors can watch feature films and documentaries by the Schools’ graduates that have been selected for and received awards at prestigious film festivals, including the Short Film second prize from the Cinéfondation Film Festival in Cannes (Calendar, 2018, directed by Igor Poplaukhin). The event will also include lectures by the Schools’ tutors — Nikolay Kovalkov, Artur Aristakisyan and Dmitry Mamulia — artistic director at the Moscow and St. Petersburg Schools of New Cinema, whose last film The Criminal Man represented Russia in Venice in 2019.
The event will be part of the education programme of The New Holland Island International Debut Film Festival that aims to introduce the key European filmmakers and their methods to the general public, as well as films by up and coming cinematographers and most current trends in modern cinema. The programme is designed for everyone who is interested in contemporary cinema.
The New Holland Island International Debut Film Festival is a platform for daring cinema, opening new frontiers and expanding established formats of filmmaking. The festival will take place in St. Petersburg and is part of the New Holland: Cultural Urbanization Project.
Free admission. Limited number of seats. Pre-registration is required (see links below). 18+
12:00 Screening of films by graduates of Moscow and St. Petersburg Schools of New Cinema
The Calendar, directed by Igor Poplaukhin, 2018
An ordinary woman, like a million others, whose life changes its normal course every few months. She sets off on a long secret journey away from her family and friends. Changing cars, sweeping tracks, being monosyllabic on the phone. What is on her mind and what is the purpose of her long journey? Winner of the Cinéfondation Student Film Competition of the Cannes Film Festival (2018) and the Short Film competition of the Kinotavr festival (2018) and many others.
Yuha, directed by Maria Ignatenko, 2015
The film is about the obsession and despair that often accompany love. The main character is in the middle of a robbery, casually going through someone’s stuff but the crime gets out of control — in the dark Yuha stumbles upon the landlady of the apartment, a girl he wouldn’t be able to forget. He constantly thinks of her, returns to her house again and again, listens to her voice on the intercom, follows her everywhere. Gradually, Yuha penetrates all the secrets of her life. However, his own life begins to crumble. The film was selected for the International Festival of Contemporary Cinema 2MORROW in 2015.
Little Death, directed by Nikolay Kovalkov, 2014
A guy regularly follows some girls around, but he doesn’t seem to know what he wants from them. He washes the cars to shine, meticulously listens to the noise of the engine and carefully folds the work overalls into a locker. They go stealing from the shops, fight over nonsense and cause emergency situations on the roads. One of these encounters will take the main character further than he had planned.
Free admission. Limited number of seats. Pre-registration required (link in Russian).
14:00 Lecture by Nikolay Kovalkov. True fiction. Character, event, form.
The tutor at St. Petersburg School of New Cinema, Nikolay Kovalkov, will talk about what it takes to create a credible movie character even if it does not have a specific prototype in real life, how significant is an event in a film’s structure, and how to find a cinematic form that inspires confidence in the viewer.
Nikolay Kovalkov is the director and teacher of the directorial workshop of St. Petersburg School of New Cinema. In 2014 he graduated from the Moscow School of New Cinema with a degree in Film Directing (Dmitry Mamulia Workshop) his graduate film project was called Little Death. He worked as a chief editor, reporter and screenwriter on Russian television, produced TV programmes and documentaries, wrote screenplays for animated films (Soyuzmultfilm) and TV series.
Free admission. Limited number of seats. Pre-registration required (link in Russian).
16:00 Lecture by Dmitry Mamulia. Can a donkey look tragic? Languages of Cinematography.
At this lecture, the artistic director of Moscow and St. Petersburg Schools of New Cinema will talk about the categories of time and story in contemporary auteur cinema, as well as the crisis of the cinema language formed in the 2000s, and what are the prospects of the language in the next decade.
Dmitry Mamulia is the artistic director of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Schools of New Cinema. He has directed such films like Moscow (2007) and Another Sky (2010), which have won awards at local and international film festivals, and The Criminal Man (2019), which participated in the Horizons competition of the Venice Film Festival in 2019.
Free admission. Limited number of seats. Pre-registration required (link in Russian).
18:00 Screening of the film Fire by Nadia Zakharova (2016)
Artur Sarkisyan, tutor at Moscow School of New Cinema will present the film directed by Nadia Zakharova — a graduate of his Workshop.
Snippets of images that change inside a visual form: the poet reads poetry through a barred window; a Mongolian girl lights a fire in the furnace and blows on the flame as if it were a wolf howling in the steppe. Like fire, the film grows out of itself in the flow of the editorial cut. Awarded the Le Donne Raccontano prize for Best Film at the Sguardi Altrove Film Festival in 2017, the Grand Prix for Best Non-Feature Film at the Message to Man festival competition, the Grand Prix for Best Film at the Rudnik Festival 2017.
Admission is free. The number of seats is limited. Pre-registration is required (link in Russian).
19:00 Lecture by Artur Aristakisyan. Black Mirror Frame
An author’s lecture by Artur Aristakisyan, director, tutor at Moscow and St. Petersburg Schools of New Cinema.
Artur Aristakisyan is a director, screenwriter, head of the director’s laboratory of Moscow School of New Cinema, tutor at St. Petersburg School of New Cinema. He directed such films like Palms (1994) and A Place on Earth (2001), which were selected by and won prizes at numerous international film festivals including Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival.
Admission is free. The number of seats is limited. Pre-registration is required (link in Russian).
