The Prize for Contribution to World Cinematography will be presented at the 34th Message to Man IFF to the legendary director and cinematic visionary Artavazd Peleshyan.
Film scholars have described Peleshyan as “the man who redefined the laws of cinema, an elemental force in filmmaking akin to Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein.”
Among his admirers were Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Godfrey Reggio, Andrei Ujică, singer Patti Smith, philosopher Paul Virilio, and photographer Raymond Depardon.
Peleshyan’s pioneering technique of “distance montage” is now taught in film schools worldwide. His cinematic “peace symphonies” have been showcased at prestigious cultural institutions, from New York’s MoMA to the festivals in Berlin and Venice.
The Prize for Contribution to World Cinematography will be awarded to Artavazd Peleshyan on October 26 at the Message to Man’s Award Ceremony.
The Festival is held with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, and the Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg.
Message to Man has long been inviting Artavazd Peleshyan to attend the Festival. This year, the master’s visit will finally become a reality.
Mikhail Zheleznikov, one of the Message to Man’s programmers, says:
“Cinema is a visual art, but we have to describe it using words. Artavazd Peleshyan does not use dialogue in his films, as he himself said, ’to save the viewers’ time,’ yet words are essential to describe and try to understand his work. His theory of ’distance montage’ is, in essence, a denial of conventional editing, an invention so celebrated by the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s. Instead, it is an attempt to connect frames not through the laws of similarity and difference, but through a principle of poetic kinship that aligns with the fundamental order of the Universe.
If we try to look at Peleshyan’s journey through the lens of his own theory, it is unlikely that the Prize for Contribution to Cinematography, which we are presenting to him at the 34th Message to Man IFF, will become a ’key frame’ in his story. Instead, it will likely be regarded as just one of many external events that contribute to the official biography of a globally renowned artist.
What may not be a ’key frame’ for Artavazd Ashotovich himself will undoubtedly be a significant event for the Festival. It is a momentous opportunity to welcome to our stage a great master, whose films have shaped generations of filmmakers worldwide—including all of us, the programmers and curators of Message to Man.”
On October 25, St. Petersburg’s Dom Kino will host a meeting with Artavazd Peleshyan and a screening of his classic films: Seasons of the Year (1975), Our Century (1982), and Life (1993).
Following the screening, attendees will have the opportunity to meet the master for an autograph session and a signing of Peleshyan’s book, My Universe and Unified Field Theory—a work he developed over the course of 40 years.
On October 22, the Word Order bookstore will host the screening of The Silence of Pelešjan (2011) by Italian director Pietro Marcello, who considers himself a disciple of the master. This screening will present a newly edited version by Marcello, marking its world premiere. The Silence of Pelešjan will be introduced by Alena Shumakova, a jury member of the National Competition of the 34th Message to Man IFF and a programmer for international film festivals.
In previous years, Message to Man’s honorary Prize for Contribution to World Cinema was awarded to Agnès Varda, Claude Lanzmann, Werner Herzog, and Ulrich Seidl.
