Briefly about the selected screenings of the 2nd day of Message to Man festival.
International Competition program of September 16 features: The White World According to Daliborek, People of the Wasteland, Distant Constellation.
“Distant Constellations is a solid documentary film. It is, importantly, well shot, paying great attention to the visuals,” Mikhail Zheleznikov, Chairman of the Selection Committee
“During some scenes of The White World According to Daliborek you can’t believe that this was not set up. Drama- and editing-wise all storylines are perfectly intertwined, and the film feels like a feature,” Alexei Medvedev, Curator of the Competition.
National Competition Program: Signs of Life
“This is a very funny film about Innopolis, an IT-city nearby Kazan. It is a utopian film and a utopian city. The city is managed through a chat, the whole city including the authorities and administration are part of it. They have a robo-Gagarin, it’s just awful. They put it on display in a Kazan mall, taught it some lines and that’s all it can do. I think that’s all you need to know about IT in Russia,” Eugeniia Marchenko, Curator of National Competition.
Panorama.doc
Program opens with Merkel Must Go and On Her Shoulders.
“Director of Merkel Must Go Sabine Michel (who’s already visited Message to Man with her film Zonenmadchen) faces a phenomenon she does not understand: emerging of an ultra-right movement in her hometown of Dresden. Weekly meetings of PEGIDA are a shock for Michel, and she’s trying to figure it out,” Alexei Medvedev.
Superreal Cinema Special Program: Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro (with the author’s presence!), Girl by Lukas Dhont and I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians by Radu Jude.
“The new Radu Jude film is almost an experimental meta-meta project: a film in a film about a play. It is far from both the black and white western Aferim! and the household drama Everybody in our family, the earlier of his works. But this director has always been interested in history, he gravitates to conversational films with an abundance of meticulous historical details,” Natalia Serebryakova, film critic.
7 short films in the first screening of Resistance: 1968-2018 Program.
“Just like last year’s program dedicated to the 1917 revolution, this time we didn’t want the event to remain within the limits of memorial celebration. It was interesting for us to understand why the 1968 protests still attract attention and how the methods of political struggle and its representation in the film can be perceived by us today. The revolution is only a beginning: let’s continue fighting, as one of the films titles claims,” Katerina Beloglazova, Co-curator of the Program.
4 short films in the Observing the Observer Program.
“A drone pilot is watching their target through thermal cameras. Remote murders have the exact opposite effect from when the victims are blindfolded before the execution. There’s no room for pity when the target is just pixels of a screen. “Have you ever stepped on an anthill and not given it a second thought?” asks one of the characters of Find Fix Finish by Sylvain Cruiziat and Mila Zhluktenko,” Alena Korolyova, Curator of the Program.
On September 16 there will be 21 screenings total. You can find the complete schedule on our website.
