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Three Russian films were shown in the framework of the Moscow Film Festival
This year's program of the Moscow Film Festival included three Russian films, the same number as a year ago. Those were Alexey Uchitel's film Walk, Irina Yevteyeva's Petersburg and the film Koktebel by debutants Boris Khlebnikov and Alexey Popogrebsky.

The 300th anniversary of St.Petersburg influenced the choice of at least two of the three films: Walk and Petersburg were shot in St.Petersburg. The film Walk shows Petersburg as a live city; the authors of the film destroy the myth representing the city as a museum, as a ghost city. St.Petersburg online consists of youth, beauty and inexhaustible energy. The youth of St.Petersburg, the heroes of the film are in fact Russian Europeans; they take fuss, love and gaiety out into the streets.

Irina Yevteyeva's film Petersburg is an unbounded visual fantasy where reality and imagination merge into one. The history of the city represented in a digital form may live its independent life; if no immediate measures are taken then human and natural passions may assume material form. Irina Yevteyeva represented sights of St.Petersburg that have become the genetic code of the Russian culture in a particular manner in her film. Each shot of the film was hand-painted with special strokes. So, the film became a combination of an animated cartoon and a feature film. Irina employed the same manner of film making for her film Clown with Russia's popular clown Vyacheslav Polunin; this unusual manner helped the film director convey the atmosphere of Polunin's amazing show (the film was also shown at the festival in the program of Russian films).

The debut of Boris Khlebnikov and Alexey Popogrebsky is a sad and good film about dreams and the reality. This film is about a boy whose mother died; his weak-willed father changed the apartment where the family lived for some other accommodation and finally started living as a tramp. The 11-year-old man abandoned his father and left for the settlement of Koktebel (in eastern Crimea) to see the monument to a glider. On his way to the place he comes across different people; the main idea of the film is that the boy is carefully cherishing his dream and nobody can deprive him of the dream.

The Russian program of the film festival this year reflects the spirit of today's life: aspiration for the future and parting with the past, momentary life and hopes.

Roman Sokolov
Special to PRAVDA.Ru