MOSCOW (Russian Film Business Today) – The 19th Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival will take place from June 7-15 in sunny Sochi. The main competition program includes films made in 2007–2008 that have not participated in other Russian film festivals and have not premiered on television. The full list of films in competition was made public on May 12 at the festival press conference at the National Hotel. Kinotavr’s selection committee, which includes the festival’s programming director Sitora Aliyeva, as well as film critics Irina Lyubarskaya, Alyona Solntseva and Yevgeny Gusyatinsky, selected 15 films: Kirill Serebrennikov’s St. George’s Day, Igor Voloshin’s Nirvana, Bakur Bakuradze’s Shultes (which is also included in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 61st Cannes Film Festival), Sergei Mokritsky’s The Four Ages of Love, Alexander Melnik’s New Land, Guka Omarova’s Baksy, Vitaly Mansky’s Virginity, Mikhail Kalatozshvili’s Wild Field, Mikhail Kosyrev-Nesterov’s Ocean, Alexei Uchitel’s Captive, Leonid Rybakov’s Say Leo, Ivan Solovov’s Elder Wife and Alexander Proshkin’s Live and Remember, which will be the festival’s opening film. It is noteworthy that Mansky’s documentary Virginity will be only the second documentary in the entire history of the Kinotavr included in the festival’s main competition.

“The selection process for the competition films was more complex than in previous years,” said Alexander Rodnyansky, chairman of the Kinotavr’s board of trustees. “There were 130 films vying for the 15 spots in the competition program, while the selection committee considered premiere films with a vivid artistic – and not commercial – component.”        

Rodnyansky added that Kinotavr’s short film competition Kinotavr Korotky Metr had become a vitally important element of the festival.

“It is difficult to imagine a better opportunity for young filmmakers to make a name for themselves,” he said. “We are particularly happy to see ‘our’ directors, who previously debuted with a short film at the festival, and subsequently participated in the competition of full-length films.”

These directors are Alexei Mizgiryov, Valeria Gai Germanika, Igor Voloshin and Bakur Bakuradze. In 2005, Mizgiryov’s film Dismissal was screened in the short film competition. In 2007, his film Hard-Hearted played at Kinotavr and subsequently won prizes at several international film festivals. Gai Germanika’s films were featured in both the short and feature competitions at Kinotavr and her new film was selected for the Critic’s Week at the 61st Cannes Film Festival. Voloshin, Rybakov and Bakuradze all have films in this year’s main competition.

Rodnyansky said that it is extremely important for Kinotavr to yield practical results from pitching in its project competition. This year's program features three films from producers that participated in last year's pitching – Yelena Glikman’s Plus One, Natalya Moritskaya’s The Four Ages of Love and Pavel Lungin’s The Lottery.

Altogether there will be more than 100 films featured in Kinotavr’s programs.

The number of film industry professionals attending Kinotavr continues to grow. Major film companies are more frequently organizing special events devoted to their new films. Kinotavr’s cooperation with the Russian International Film Market has grown.

This year, festival guests and participants will be able to attend daily press conferences and master classes, pitching, three round table discussions devoted to film industry subjects, presentations of new projects and a busy program of cultural events.

“We’re doing everything for Kinotavr to become one of the most important national film events,” Rodnyansky said.

It is now known that the main competition jury will be headed up by Pavel Chukhrai and will include producer Roman Borisevich, writer-director Marina Razbezhkina, actress Marina Golub and film historian Yelena Stishova. The names of the other jury members are being kept under wraps for the moment.

This year’s festival will award an award “For Excellence in Cinematography.” In addition, as is customary, the main competition will award the main prize, which includes 625,000 rubles, and the regular awards for best directing, first film, actor, actress, as well as the Grigory Gorin Prize for the best screenplay and Mikael Tariverdiev Prize for best music. At the opening ceremony, renowned director and screenwriter Alexei Guerman will receive an award “For Outstanding Artistic Contribution to the Development of Russian Cinematic Art” and during the closing ceremony, well-known critic and producer Armen Medvedev will be awarded “For Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Russian Cinematic Art and Science.”

The jury for the Kinotavr Korotky Metr short film competition includes director Anna Melikyan, producer Natalya Mokritskaya and film critic Leonid Pavlyuchik. The short film jury will watch 21 films and award the best entry with the Best Short Film prize, which also includes 125,000 rubles and enough Kodak film to shoot a feature film.

During the pitching, which will take place on June 13, a professional audience will be presented with eight projects including The Other Side of the Moon from producer Yelena Yatsura and director Pyotr Tochilin, The Last Day from producer Roman Borisevich and director Alexei Popogrebsky and Traffic Jam from producer Yekaterina Filippova and director Alexander Kott.

Kinotavr’s non-competitive programs include Summer Euphoria, Cinema on the Square, Anthology of Russian Cinema, Cinema That We Overlooked and others.

The festival’s closing film will be Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film Shine a Light, which captured the Stones in performance at New York’s Beacon Theater in the autumn of 2006.

According to festival director Yelena Lapina, this year’s budget has increased significantly compared to last year, since Sochi is strenuously preparing for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“As soon as any Russian city starts to rapidly develop, there is a sharp rise in prices there on practically all services,” she said.

Lapina also told the journalists at the press conference that this year a new screen and film projection equipment with a new sound system will be installed in the Zhemchuzhina Hotel’s screening room.

In addition, Rodnyansky announced that according to Sochi’s development program, a Kinotavr festival center would open by 2014.