Final guide to the 33rd Message to Man festival

We are finishing selecting interesting events during the Message to Man festival.

The special program "NST Horror Fest" will feature the psychological thriller "Cat and Mouse" by Susanne Vogel, based on a story by Kristin Rupenyan. According to the program director of NST Horror Fest, film critic Yegor Moskvitin, "Cat and Mouse" is not only an entertaining film but also a deep social study of abusive relationships and the persistent inequality between women and men, an incredible story that everyone in their twenties and thirties should see. The premiere took place at the Sundance Film Festival.

October 20 at the "Avrora" cinema will feature the Opening Film of the 33rd International Message to Man Film Festival – the new film by director Michel Gondry, "The Book of Solutions", which will be released in Russian theaters on November 16.

In the special program "Panorama.doc" by Alexei Medvedev and Natalia Pylaeva, in addition to those previously announced, there is another Russian premiere. October 21 at the Blue Hall of "Dom Kino" will feature the film "Michael Douglas, the Prodigy" by director Amin Mestari about the life of the American movie star, the eldest son of the great Kirk Douglas. This is a documentary about how the two-time Oscar and six-time Golden Globe winner Michael Douglas managed to step out of the shadow of his legendary father and conquer his own heights.

October 21 at the Grand Hall of the "Rodina" cinema will feature the film "About Dry Grasses" by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan from the "Cinema of Hyperreality" program. The director has won awards at the Cannes Film Festival three times.

October 22 at the White Hall of "Dom Kino" will feature the documentary "Chronicle of Reality" by Pavel Medvedev. This is an almost three-hour documentary canvas presenting the history of non-fiction cinema in Leningrad – St. Petersburg, with rare footage of authors and creators of documentary cinema at the legendary LenDoc studio. After the screening, there will be a meeting with the director.

Premieres of non-fiction projects from Russian online cinemas will be shown to audiences as part of Industry Day on October 24 at the Media Center of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. There will also be a round table on the development of non-fiction film and series production in collaboration with Russian online cinemas. The moderator of the round table is film columnist Susanna Alperina. The event will gather heads of departments and producers from Russian digital platforms (Okko, Premier, Kion, Start, Ivi, Studio Videoprokat, Internet Development Institute).

FESTIVAL JURY

The International Jury includes theater and film actress Elizaveta Boyarskaya (Russia), director Chaitanya Tamhane (India), director Huang Ji (China), producer, director, actor Shahram Ebrahimi (Iran), director, screenwriter Isabella Eklöf (Sweden).

The National Competition Jury includes producer and writer from Italy Olga Strada, documentary directors from Uzbekistan Umida Akhmedova and Oleg Karpov, and non-fiction film director from Israel Lydia Sheinina.

Jury of the International Competition of Short Experimental Films In Silico: American director Patrick Bresnan; teacher, media artist, video, experimental photography and installation artist Masha Dantsis; Russian museum designer, expert Nadya Pantyulina; Russian artist, composer, curator, founder of the collective u/n multitude Nikita Spiridonov.

Press Jury: film critic, associate professor at the St. Petersburg Institute of Cinema and Television (workshop of film studies), editor-in-chief of the international scientific journal "KINEMA" Victoria Smirnova-Maizel, film critic for the newspaper "Kommersant" Yulia Shagelman, and film critic, theater scholar Oleg Zintsov.

The festival program films will traditionally be evaluated by members of the Student Jury: student of SPbGIKiT Maria Malinina; student of the directing workshop of the St. Petersburg School of New Cinema Daria Omelchenko; student of VGIK Pinjia Uy; student of SPbSU Alexandra Rudavskaya.

Read about which events the "After Credits" editorial team will attend in further materials.