Not format

The project, which a year ago seemed like a complete utopia for the authors themselves and an ugly duckling in the eyes of officials, has become a reality, and besides, it materialized in St. Petersburg not without a certain charm. The event brought somewhat unexpected results even for those who had been struggling for a year to bring the idea to life. It turned out that films showing wards of social services in artistic images have a strong impact on employees of the relevant institutions. Ekaterina Mayboroda from the Committee on Labor and Social Protection of the St. Petersburg administration could not hide her enthusiasm: “This is direct experience, skills, working methods”...

The competitive part of the social cinema film forum “Time to Live” has ended. But the special program will last at the Rodina cinema center until April 9

These are the “Love Letters”

The jury of the film forum was faced with the challenges of the competition, which have always been difficult: to separate the wheat from the chaff, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, having been burned in the milk, not to blow on the water, and not to say “god” until you have jumped over... Considering that the jury included representatives of not only creative professions, the decision was, as the classic of Marxism-Leninism used to say, an extremely difficult task.
The German film “The Purge of Leroy” by Armin Welkers was recognized as the best short fiction film. Its hero is a young black philosopher living in Berlin (Jimmi Hendrix and Angela Davis rolled into one). He reasons something like this: “Nazism is not only harmful, but also contagious, especially if there are fools in the government.” Leroy is loved for his philosophical gift by a girl whose four brothers consider themselves skins, which, however, does not discourage our philosopher. As a result, the skinhead guys go over to the side of love and goodness...
The title of best documentary film was shared by two films: “Out of Time” by Swiss director Jeanne Berfo, which tells the story of two unemployed people who came to St. Petersburg under a government program, and “Love Letters from a Children’s Prison” by Anna Sirota and David Kinsella, a film about juvenile prisoners convicted of serious crimes. The main characters are a guy and a girl who are waiting for their loved one to return from the Kolpino juvenile colony, write letters to him, and come on dates. But this is only the top layer of the documentary story. In addition to the heartbreaking stories of teenage killers, it also shows a correctional facility riddled with violence, where a strange paratrooper major, discharged from the army after being shell-shocked in Chechnya, rules the roost. So the head of the colony, although no one pulled his tongue, dreams on camera about preparing ideal soldiers from his charges, because “a soldier is a killer”... But this is a topic for another conversation.
In the “Best Feature Film” category, two feature-length debuts received prizes – “City Without the Sun” by Sergei Potemkin, where one of the main roles was brilliantly played by Sergei Bezrukov. It’s a paradox, but this film about self-sacrifice for love was called by one of the jury members “a highly artistic latent drug advertisement” - this is an example of how difficult the discussions were. The second winner is the film “The Story of Dong Za” by Chinese director Pan Baochang, a sincere and tender story about first love and the choice of life path, about friendship and family.
Special prizes went to the films “Vacuum” by Evgeniy Semenov, “Before Arriving on Earth” by Aurunas Matelis, the already mentioned “Out of Time” by Zhanna Berfo and “The Plantain” by Yuri Kuznetsov and Valery Naumov. The last one is perhaps especially noteworthy. A poignant film about the problems of disabled people with disabilities was made by a person who is familiar with these problems first-hand: Yuri Kuznetsov, president of the regional public organization of disabled people “We Are Together”...
And about discussions. This, in my opinion, is one of the most important defining qualities of any film festival. The Social Cinema Forum was generous with discussion clubs, where not only the authors of the films gathered, but also the heads of government agencies directly related to social issues. And to pull an official out of his siege tower onto the lists - you yourself understand...
Yuri Kuznetsov called these discussion clubs a colossal event that would have been impossible without festival film screenings. And the fact that the film forum allocated three whole days for a special program of films about the problems of disabled people with the eloquent name “Perspectives”, according to Yuri, is an unprecedented event. “It seemed to us,” says Kuznetsov, “that these films would never come out on the screen. Television officials have developed a formulation that is remarkable in its inexpressiveness for all occasions - “not a format.” Our films fall into this category.” Here I remember the words that the amazing Spanish artist, world famous mime Carlos Martinez, who opened the film forum with his stage miniatures, said at the opening of the festival: “The whole world is one big bus stop, where everyone is waiting for something.” Some people probably still think that they will come for them in a personal car.

Alexey NEDVIGA