{"id":27272,"date":"2024-10-02T20:19:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T17:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/message2man.com\/?p=27272"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:30:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T10:30:52","slug":"2024-national-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/message2man.com\/en\/2024-national-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Alena Solntseva speaks about the National competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Alena<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The selection process for the Message to Man International Film Festival\u2019s national competition is dictated by the traditions of one of the oldest Russian film festivals. The message must truly be addressed to man \u2013 that is, to humankind. Not to the state, not to society, not to the masses, but to those specific people that are alive today, each of whom is trying to find their bearings as best they can in a rapidly changing world that eludes definition. And to us it seems that those who command the greatest trust among audiences are artists, those who are not afraid to share their own vulnerability with the viewer.<\/p>\n

More films than usual have been selected for the national competition this year. But the total running time of the programme has not changed: the number of shorts \u2013 defined as being from nine to 30 minutes \u2013 has grown. It\u2019s as if documentary filmmakers, especially the young ones (and as always, they are the majority in the competition), are hastening to record the \u201chere and now\u201d while it is still fresh, to capture the inner life of ordinary people during a time of heightened turbulence. This is the central theme of most of the films in the competition. Their authors scrutinise the quiet issues that often go unnoticed by society and the state but are fundamental for any individual in their private life.<\/p>\n

A significant proportion of young filmmakers are interested in close human relationships, and there are plenty of films in the programme that reflect this: Alexandra Kretsan\u2019s\u00a0Hi Papa!<\/i><\/a>, Inna Omelchenko\u2019s\u00a0Nevesta<\/i><\/a>, Nastya\u00a0Ivanova\u2019s\u00a0Dif<\/i>-friend<\/i><\/a>, Elizaveta\u00a0Savvina\u2019s\u00a0Catching Snowflakes on Her Tongue + Cute Little Drunk <\/i><\/a>and Evgeniya\u00a0Gorda\u2019s\u00a0Wandering Pain<\/i><\/a> and Sergei Kan\u2019s\u00a0Farewell, My Sea<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But more experienced documentary filmmakers with a higher profile also examine individual destinies and recognise the eternal themes they contain. The experience of small nations searching for their own identity within the vastness of Russia is also explored (Ivan Vlasov and Nikita Stashkevich\u2019s\u00a0The Wind Has No Tail<\/i><\/a> and Tatyana Soboleva\u2019s\u00a0Against the Wind<\/em><\/a>), as well as the natural feeling of loneliness for a person deprived of their habitual surroundings (Shamil\u00a0Yagafarov\u2019s\u00a0To Lay <\/i>Your Head<\/i><\/a>). In Denis Shabayev\u2019s film Without<\/i> News<\/i><\/a>, the protagonist, a priest and lover of classical ballet, tries honourably to maintain his inner harmony in the face of numerous obstacles. The author of the experimental film There Is Still More to Come<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>Masha Godovannaya examines the familiar urban landscape through coloured filters \u2013 so recognisably ordinary, it seems, yet fraught with global catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Modern man is in himself a complex being and experiences no less difficulty coping with the world around him; not only with himself, but also with the constantly changing social norms that he is constantly considering and applying to himself. For example, Evgeniya\u00a0Dudnikova\u2019s\u00a0Teeny-Tiny<\/i><\/a> focuses on the fragility of the boundaries of humanity, and the viewers themselves are asked to work out how they feel about an acute problem that is not at all medical in nature.<\/p>\n

Of course, the search for new ways of cinematic expression is important for the Message to Man festival, but it is clear that there are currently no new distinctive aesthetic trends in the world. But there are local nuances. For example, Russian films are increasingly returning to the use of off-screen narration by the protagonist or filmmaker, including those selected for the national competition \u2013 although until recently, independent filmmakers rejected this technique, believing that the viewer has more freedom and greater opportunity to interpret films when free of the verbal formulations imposed by a director. For instance, in Marina Razbezhkina\u2019s school there was an outright ban on narration. But the active use of it in modern films is not associated with didactics, but with the desire to get closer to a person\u2019s inner world, to hear their intonations, to discover their attitudes and to correlate the narration with the image.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Popov\u2019s film La Ville en Rose<\/i><\/a>\u00a0is built entirely on the complex interaction between the everyday life of a small town and the joyful intonations of one of the characters. Alexei Fedorchenko, author of the film almanac #u<\/i>nderfoot<\/i><\/a>, reflects on rituals and memory. In each of the film\u2019s four novellas he either invites the viewer to look more closely at the screen or makes use of subtitles. In the final part, Fedorchenko himself becomes the subject of his own film and his voice is heard narrating events. In the short Text <\/i>for<\/i> a Film <\/i>Pitch<\/i><\/a>\u00a0the voice of the filmmaker, Dasha\u00a0Likhaya, gathers experiments with image into a very personal story. With Hydroelectric Joy<\/i><\/a>, Alexander Markov offers viewers what appears at first glance to be a historical montage film, but in fact he is interested not in the construction of the Aswan dam, but in the feelings of a man who took part in the project, a private drama set against the backdrop of the challenges of industrialisation. The film is accompanied by the narrated real-life correspondence between the protagonist, a simple Soviet hydro engineer sent to Egypt, and his beloved, who is waiting for him back in Leningrad.<\/p>\n

Montage of historical footage, whether family videos (on VHS or taken from social networks) or professional newsreels found in the state archives, has become free and capricious as associations, and nowadays is rarely absent from a film.<\/p>\n

Contemporary cinematic language, with its extremely wide possibilities, both experimental and traditional, allows filmmakers to deal with very subtle matters: with feelings and sensations, pain, anxiety, with the search for happiness and understanding \u2013 and not to crush an individual\u2019s creative potential with a rigid form of art.<\/p>\n

Alena<\/b><\/i>\u00a0<\/b><\/i>Solntseva<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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