On October 18, the annual film festival "Message to Man" will begin in St. Petersburg. In our article, we will explore what makes the festival interesting this year.

Message to Man 2024

Last year we actively covered the festival program and want to keep this tradition. The International Film Festival of Documentary, Short Fiction, Animation, and Experimental Films "Message to Man" will delight audiences until October 27. This year, the festival program traditionally features over one hundred and fifty films from around the world, created by directors of various cultures and aesthetic directions. Among the jury and festival guests are film and art professionals from around the world, from Nepal and Argentina to Italy and Canada.

The festival will kick off with the opening film — "The Apprentice: The Rise of Trump" by Ali Abbasi. Then 77 films will compete for the title of "Best Film" in two categories — International and National competitions. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

International Competition

This competition selects feature-length documentaries, short documentaries, short fiction films, and short animated films.

Among the nominees, you can find films from Australia (Flathead), Switzerland (Exit Through the Cuckoo's Nest), Panama (Panadrilo), or Bosnia and Herzegovina (The Whisperer).

National Competition

The National Competition of "Message to Man" includes both feature and short films that compete on equal terms.

The authors of these films look into quiet issues, often unnoticed by society and the state, but essential for any person in their private life. Modern cinematic language, with its wide possibilities, both experimental and traditional, allows addressing very subtle matter: feelings and sensations, pain, anxiety, the search for happiness and understanding.

Curator of the National Competition Alena Solntseva

"#underthefeet" If you look carefully under your feet, you can find amazing things and stories. An almanac shot in Moscow, Perm, Grozny, and Wrocław (Poland).

"Hello, Dad!" Nadia is 31. Once she ran away from her native Kazakh village to a big Russian city, where she started a new life with a new name, story, and ultimately a new destiny. Years later, she decides to return to her homeland, where her father still lives, to face her biggest childhood fear and finally find wholeness.

"Catching Snowflakes with Mouth + Very Cute" Gelya enjoys her youth. Her older sister Kristina is expecting a second child, though she is only seventeen. Fourteen-year-old Gelya is predicted the same fate. She walks with a boy in love with her. Debut work by director Lisa Savvina

In Silico Short Experimental Film Competition

For the 14th time, the "Message to Man" festival hosts the In Silico Short Experimental Film Competition.

As always, the largest thematic block in the competition is dedicated to the work of memory and its preservation in media, the desire to decipher subjective human experience contained in amateur and professional footage and photographs, in TV commercials and beautiful computer renders.

Selector of the Experimental Competition In Silico Mikhail Zheleznikov

Soyuzmultfilm: Best of 10 Years

Special attention should be paid to the Soyuzmultfilm program, which features interesting works from the studio over the past 10 years.

Over ten years (2014–2024), the Soyuzmultfilm studio has produced more than 150 short films. More than 300 Russian and international festivals have shown the studio's films, which have received over 320 prizes and awards — including the Golden Eagle, Nika, and Ikar film awards.

Events

In addition to the competition program, the "Message to Man" festival will delight its guests with an exciting program of various film events.

There will be master classes with film professionals, an active discussion on artificial intelligence and cinema as part of the Neural Network Cinema Laboratory, and lectures. Over four days, participants will learn to interact with neural networks under the guidance of Andrea Gatopoulos and create a collective film that will be presented by the authors at a special screening at the end of the festival. The program also includes events open to the public: a series of lectures on AI and screenings of films created using neural networks.

The main event in this series is the special program "Dedication to Khamdamov". It includes a lecture by Lyubov Arkus, photo exhibitions, and special screenings of the director and artist's cult films: Vocal Parallels (2005), Diamonds (short, 2010), The Bottomless Bag (2017).

At the closing of "Message to Man," viewers will see "All We Imagine as Light" by Payal Kapadia, the triumphant film of this year's Cannes Film Festival, which won the Grand Prix, one of the most prestigious awards of the festival.