The Message to Man International Film Festival is preparing for its anniversary: the 35th edition will be celebrated in St Petersburg from October 17 to 25. Parallel to the competition programme and special sections, the Festival will present a rich cultural line-up.
This landmark date offers an opportunity to reflect on time itself: guests can look forward to meetings with directors, masterclasses, excursions, roundtables, lectures, an exhibition, performances, and a stage production. More than 20 events are planned across four major thematic sections.
The Festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, and the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture.
MARKING THE ANNIVERSARY
Thirty-five years in the life of the man, the country, and cinema
IN BETWEEN
Evenings of reminiscence with iconic figures of St Petersburg’s cultural scene
ART DECO
A style marking its centenary, explored through lectures, performances, excursions, and a stage production
MASTER CLASSES
An open conversation about cinema as a way of being, with those for whom the director’s chair has become second nature
MARKING THE ANNIVERSARY
Grand Prix x 2: Meetings with Sergei Dvortsevoy and Aleksandr Petrov
Winners of the Festival’s Grand Prix from different years will meet with audiences.
On October 23, director Sergei Dvortsevoy—author of both documentary and live-action films, and winner of the Un Certain Regard main prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Tulpan—will reflect on 35 years of life and creative work. The event will be accompanied by a screening of his documentary In the Dark.
On October 23, at the same venue, an open dialogue will follow screenings of Aleksandr Petrov’s celebrated animated films Mermaid, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and My Love. Petrov—artist, animator, and the only Russian winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film—will share a retrospective look on his work and achievements.
A series of intellectual meetings ‘How Did We End Up Here?’
On October 18 and 19, a pair of roundtables under the eloquent title How Did We End Up Here? will bring together thinkers and artists for whom reflection and artistic practice are a preferred way of understanding the world. Participants will discuss the “crossroads of destinies” that have shaped today’s socio-cultural landscape.
Roundtable: ‘From Post-History to History. On Illusions and Realities’
On October 18, leading St. Petersburg philosophers will take part in a historical and philosophical discussion at New Holland. Among them: Yoel Regev, Associate Professor at the Centre for Practical Philosophy Stasis at the European University; Oksana Timofeeva, author of An Introduction to Georges Bataille’s Erotic Philosophy and The History of Animals; Alexander Pogrebnyak, Associate Professor at the St. Petersburg State University and visiting lecturer at the European University; and Artyom Radeev, Doctor of Philosophy and Associate Professor of cultural studies, philosophy of culture, and aesthetics at the St. Petersburg State University. Together, they will attempt to determine when progress and transformation ceased to be part of lived reality. The discussion will be moderated by Mikhail Ratgauz, Programme Director of the Message to Man Festival.
Roundtable: ‘What Is Art to Do Amidst a Multi-Crisis?’
On October 19, also at New Holland, the roundtable What Is Art to Do Amidst a Multi-Crisis? will continue the series. Guided by Vasily Stepanov, Editor-in-Chief of Seance magazine and Chair of the International Competition Selection Committee, the session participants will reflect on art in a turbulent age. They include poet, prose writer, and essayist Alexander Skidan; literary scholar and critic Alexei Konakov; art historian Sergei Fofanov, Senior Researcher in the department of contemporary art trends at the State Tretyakov Gallery; Gleb Yershov, Professor at the European University’s School of Arts and Cultural Heritage; philosopher Mikhail Kurtov; and director Masha Godovannaya, whose film Conversation is included in this year’s competition programme.
Message to Man at 35: Anniversary Screening
On October 18 at 2 p.m., the anniversary year will be marked by a meeting at Dom Kino between the Festival President, filmmaker, and People’s Artist of Russia Aleksey Uchitel, and long-time team members and friends of the Festival: legendary Russian filmmaker Andrey Smirnov, curator of the In Silico Experimental Film Competition Mikhail Zheleznikov, film journalist Olga Shervud, and curator of the Panorama.doc section Natalia Pylaeva. Joining via video link will be director Irina Kalinina, wife and collaborator of the Festival’s founder Mikhail Litvyakov. The meeting will also feature “film memoirs”: Irina Kalinina’s Message to Man, about the very first edition of the Festival; Roman Pomerantsev’s documentary Litvyakov to Man; anniversary video messages from Grand Prix winners around the world; and the Russian premiere of an excerpt from Agnès Varda’s television film From Here to There, which includes her journey to the Festival in St. Petersburg.
IN BETWEEN
‘Cinema of St. Petersburg: Experiments of the 1990s’ — A Diptych of Memory
Evenings of reminiscence with iconic figures of St. Petersburg cinema, reflecting on the great and powerful decade of the 1990s, will take place under the curatorship of Egor Sennikov, programmer of the Festival’s special section In Between: St. Petersburg’s Film Culture of the 1990s. The first evening, on October 19, will feature director, film scholar, and founder of Seance magazine Lyubov Arkus; costume designer Nadezhda Vasilieva; producer and head of STV film company Sergei Selyanov; and acclaimed filmmaker, Festival President, and People’s Artist of Russia Aleksey Uchitel.
Participants of the second evening, on October 21, will include film scholar and historian Oleg Kovalov; artist and member of the creative group Mitki Dmitry Shagin; filmmaker Eduard Shelganov; film critic and historian Dmitry Savelyev; cinematographer Alexander Burov (whose credits include works by Aleksandr Sokurov and Evgeniy Yufit); production designer and Nika Award laureate Elena Zhukova; and filmmaker Masha Godovannaya, widow of Evgeniy Yufit.
“St. Petersburg’s 1990s cinema is both a chronicle of upheaval and a space of experimentation. Today, decades later, it is crucial to revisit these films: to understand how they were created amid crisis, what the experience of watching them was like, and what legacy they left behind. The Festival’s two roundtable discussions will bring together directors, producers, critics, and artists to talk about St. Petersburg cinema of that era—its creators as well as its audiences,” says Egor Sennikov, curator of the special section In Between: St. Petersburg’s Film Culture of the 1990s.
ART DECO
Legendary Style in Five Lectures
This year marks the centenary of art deco, and the remarkable coincidence of two anniversaries has allowed us to view this style—rooted in contradiction—as the most honest reflection of our era. In addition to a special film section, the Message to Man curators, in collaboration with the HSE University School of Design in St. Petersburg, have prepared a series of lectures exploring the style. On October 18 and 24, lectures will take place at the Doctrina Et Nobiles educational space. Darina Polikarpova, senior lecturer in the “History and Theory of Design” course, PhD in Philosophy, and film critic, will discuss how art deco gave rise to “impure cinema.” Ksenia Malich, academic head of the master’s programme at the School of Design, senior lecturer at HSE University, and PhD in Art History, will dedicate her lecture to the image of the superhuman in the architecture and design of the art deco era.
On October 25, Kanatny Tsekh at the Krasny Gvozdilshchik factory will host talks by Leonid Alekseev, founder of the House of Leo brand and chief curator of the “Fashion Design” bachelor’s programme at the HSE School of Design in St. Petersburg; Andrey Punin, chief curator of the “Environmental and Interior Design” section in St. Petersburg, architect, and public art creator; and Daria Romanova, master of fashion theory and art historian. Attendees will broaden their intellectual horizons through explorations of fashionable reconstruction in self-identity, women’s fashion of the art deco era, and utopian architecture.
For one day, on October 25, Kanatny Tsekh will transform into a realm of authentic synthesis of the arts, inspired by a grand vision. As part of the educational project “Turn of the Times,” students from the HSE School of Design will present a fashion collection in the art deco style, ballet stars will “dance” cinematic narratives of the 1920s, and a specially created installation of original art objects will celebrate the first style in history to be called “total.”
Thanks to the Festival’s collaboration with the educational project “Petersburg Through the Eyes of an Engineer,” the parallel programme extends to the city streets. A bus-and-walking tour titled “Our Art Deco: Revealing the Unseen” will take place in St. Petersburg on October 5, 12, and 26. The route is designed as a leisurely journey through different eras, where participants will discover how art deco was employed in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg houses, structures from the 1930s, and modern buildings.
A dazzling style deserves a dazzling programme highlight: on October 23, Dom Radio will host the premiere of the dance performance The Stone of Madness, or Dedication to Chaos. Choreographed by Alevtina Gruntovskaya in collaboration with scenographer Veronika Turkanova, this dance performance balances between cinema, literature, and dance, embodying the idea of reality slipping beyond human control, inspired by Chilean philosopher Benjamín Labatut’s book La piedra de la locura (The Stone of Madness).
MASTER CLASSES
Participants will gain firsthand insights into the nuances of cinematic art through masterclasses led by esteemed and audience-beloved filmmakers at the St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television. On October 21, an online session will feature living animation legend, director Andrey Khrzhanovskiy (The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks). On October 22, the St. Petersburg School of New Cinema will host a joint masterclass by artists Platon Infante and Daria Konovalova-Infante on “Intermediality in Contemporary Art.” That same day, Sergei Dvortsevoy will conduct a masterclass, while on October 23, Sergei Miroshnichenko, creator of the Born in the USSR series and academic of the Nika Russian Academy of Cinematographic Arts, will share the secrets of crafting compelling documentary narratives. The St. Petersburg School of New Cinema will also host a masterclass by video artist and long-time friend of the Festival Mikhail Basov, whose film programme is featured among the special sections.