The 36th Message to Man International Film Festival will take place in St. Petersburg from October 16 to 24, 2026.
The Message to Man Festival was founded in 1989 as a showcase for non-fiction cinema. Before long, however, it significantly broadened its scope, evolving into a festival of documentary, short fiction, animated, and experimental films. In this expansion of boundaries—medial, aesthetic, and conceptual—the festival’s guiding principle reveals itself: to remain attentive to the contemporary moment, to respond to the shifts of reality, and to acknowledge the conventional nature of any predetermined limits.
At the same time, Message to Man continues to focus on non-fiction cinema as the most perceptive witness to the present moment. The curators—of the documentary programs, but also of the fiction and experimental ones—are in a constant search for films capable of responding to today. This is the only way to sustain the idea of a “message” and to carry on the work of a festival whose history, not by chance, intersects with three decades of profound change in Russia and in the world.
FACTS, FIGURES, & NAMES
The Festival was established by Resolution No. 29 of the Soviet Union’s Council of Ministers, dated January 16, 1989:
«…to approve the proposal of the USSR State Committee for Cinematography and the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, supported by the Leningrad City Executive Committee, to hold the First International Documentary Film Festival Message to Man in Leningrad, from January 25 to 31, 1989.»
The founder of the Festival was Mikhail Litvyakov, a non-fiction filmmaker who headed Message to Man for 20 years and became its Honorary President.
Since 2010, the President of the Festival has been Alexey Uchitel, director of documentary and feature films and People’s Artist of Russia.
In accordance with its regulations, the Festival programme includes:
- International Competition (feature-length documentary films up to 120 minutes; short documentary films up to 40 minutes; short fiction and animated films up to 30 minutes);
- National Documentary Film Competition (up to 120 minutes);
- International Experimental Film Competition In Silico (up to 20 minutes);
- Non-competition and special programmes.
The selection committee receives around 3,000 submissions annually. More than 200 films are featured across competition and non-competition programmes.
Over the Festival’s 35-year history, its juries, guests, and participants have included: Vadim Abdrashitov, Fanny Ardant, Garri Bardin, Šarūnas Bartas, Konstantin Bronzit, Agnès Varda, Michael Glawogger, Bahman Ghobadi, Philip Gröning, Tonino Guerra, Gerrit van Dijk, Sergei Dvortsevoy, Ulrich Seidl, Claude Lanzmann, Sergei Loznitsa, Mark Cousins, Semih Kaplanoğlu, Abdellatif Kechiche, Udo Kier, Viktor Kossakovsky, Pavel Kostomarov, Jem Cohen, Emir Kusturica, Kira Muratova, Mira Nair, Artavazd Peleshyan, Alexander Petrov, Bill Plympton, Marina Razbezhkina, Alexander Rastorguev, Godfrey Reggio, Leni Riefenstahl, Zbigniew Rybczyński, John Smith, Alexander Sokurov, Paolo Sorrentino, Frederick Wiseman, Herz Frank, Rustam Khamdamov, Alisher Khamidkhodjaev, Werner Herzog, Fyodor Khitruk, Andrei Khrzhanovsky, Volker Schlöndorff, and Isabelle Huppert.
Until 2022, the Festival was accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF), France.
The Festival receives organizational and financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and its Department of Cinematography, the Government of St. Petersburg and its Committee on Culture, the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, and the Festival’s general sponsor, Ilim Group. The Festival is organized by the Non-Profit Partnership for the Promotion of Cinema and Theatre Development “Message to Man.”
More information about Message to Man can be found in the “Festival History” section.
