5 Films of the Day: October 22

Here is the second day of the XXXII Message to Man Film Festival in St. Petersburg. Every day our website will recommend five films from its competition and out-of-competition programmes.


Girl Gang

Fourteen-year-old Leonie is a successful teen influencer who lives on the outskirts of Berlin.   Millions of followers are at her feet, and companies shower her with products.  When Leonie’s parents recognize the enormous economic potential of their daughter’s online activities, they quickly take over her management.  But Leonie’s life dictated by brands and pressure to produce content, slowly turns into a prison.

The film received the Audience Prize at DokFest Munich, as well as the Best Editing at Doc Edge.

 

In Pursuit of Light

95-year-old actress Lisa Lu talks about her life, fellow fiim makers, career and her on-going process of dream pursuing inside the movie world. The audience will get to know Minwei Li, the father of Hongkong cinema, and one of the first Asian actresses who has her own “star” on the Hollywood Boulevard, Anna May Wong. Bruce Lee will also be there.

A real insight into the historical context of the Chinese film industry. The only screening in St. Petersburg.

 

Follow the Sea

Stories of women on different shores of the Caspian Sea.  Despite their ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious differences, the destinies of the film’s heroines create a contradictory portrait of the modern woman in the Islamic world.   These are stories of people in search of happiness, beside an ancient, elemental body of water.

 

Madalena

Luziane, Cristiano, and Bianca have almost nothing in common, beside the fact that they all live in the same rural city surrounded by soy fields in western Brazil.  While they don’t know one another, each of them is affected by Madalena’s disappearance.

Madiano Marcheti’s film won Best Film Prize at Istanbul IFF; Special Jury Prize, Guanajuato IFF, as well as Best Debut Prize at Lima IFF and Best Director Prize at São Paolo IFF.

 

Big Snakes of Ulli-Kale

A new film by the Russian award-winning director Alexey Fedorchenko (Silent Souls, Anna’s War, The Last Darling Bulgaria), which goes beyond the conventional documentary. The director invites you on an exciting ethnographic journey, which combines the history of relations between the peoples of Russia and the Caucasus and the aesthetics of silent cinema.

Fedorchenko’s career started at the Sverdlovsk film studio, where he went all the way from senior economist at the newsreel-documentary film association to director. The range of almost twenty years of Fedorchenko’s film career is impressive; it includes feature and documentary films, short and full-length, as well as awards from Russian and foreign festivals from Venice Film Festival to Nika.

 

October 22, Saturday Schedule:

Dom Kino, Big Hall, 12, Karavannaya street

Special Screening

15:30 – In Pursuit of Light, dir. Zhang Tongdao, China, 2022, 86 min.

Panorama.doc 3

17:50 – Girl Gang, dir. Susanne Regina Meures, Switzerland, 2022, 98 min.

New Voices 3

20:30 – There Will Be No More Night, dir. Éléonore Weber, France, 2020, 76 min.

 

Dom Kino, Blue Hall, 12, Karavannaya street

National Competition 2

13:00 – Follow the Sea, dir. Denis Shabaev, Russia, 2021, 81 min.

Red Africa 2

18:30 – A Daughter Tribute to Her Father, dir. Fatou Cissé, 2022, Mali, 73 min.

Panorama.doc 1 

20:50 – Waters of Pastaza, dir. Inês T. Alves, Portugal, 2022, 61 min. 

 

Rodina, Big Hall, 12, Karavannaya street

New Voices 4

17:40 – Madalena, dir. Madiano Marcheti, Brazil, 2021, 85 min.

 

Avrora, Big Hall, 60, Nevsky pr.

Opening film 2

16:30 – Big Snakes of Ulli-Kale, dir. Alexey Fedorchenko, Russia, 2022, 122 min.

 

Velikan Park, Small Hall 4, 4, Alexandrovsky park BUILDING 3

New Voices 1 

18:20 – The Tale of King Crab, dir. Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis, Italy, 2021, 106 min.

New Voices 2 

20:30 – Super Natural, dir. Jorge Jácome, Portugal, 2022, 85 min.

 

Alexandrinsky Theatre, New Stage, 49A, naberezhnaya reki Fontanki

19.30 – Opening Ceremony of the Festival