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The festival of short films, documentaries and animations has ended in St. Petersburg

The fourth Open Cinema festival of short, documentary and animated films has ended in St. Petersburg. If we take into account that one of the St. Petersburg complexes is precisely the absence of a “big” film festival, then it is clear that “Open Cinema” demonstrates complete freedom from it. Year after year, trying to gain respectability, the festival manages to focus on the cinema, and not on the ceremonies, which this time could not be avoided.

The first thing you notice when looking at the festival program is that this year Open Cinema has finally broken away from the umbilical cord of an exclusively “atmospheric” festival. To be honest, in previous years viewers were more willing to go not to screenings, say, at the House of Cinema, but to the programs of the first days on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress. And they were interested not so much in cinema as in the opportunity to watch it in the open air, periodically being distracted by performances staged by street theaters and drinking tea. The organizers of Open Cinema struggled with the “atmosphere” of the entire event as best they could, and this year they finally managed to somehow rein it in. The jury was assembled from authoritative, but not “dirty persons”, such as Konstantin Lopushansky, Mikhail Trofimenkov and Irina Evteeva, the AXE Theater was called upon to organize performances, and finally, the film program turned out to be three times larger than in previous years.

As often happens at festivals, at Open Cinema the official program was not the most interesting. Much more excitement was caused by special screenings - works by students of European film schools, the block “Without Anesthesia” (extreme cinema “for those prepared”), the animation of “Pilot”, “Mill” and “Ball”, a retrospective of documentaries by Alexander Rastorguev, and so on. And unlike competitive shows, the special programs were completely win-win.

However, both the official and special programs looked very uneven: along with witty sketches, there was also pretentious bad taste, posing as video art, next to harsh dramas - the most absurd creations of students of yet another mysterious educational institution.

As for the prizes, their presentation did not bring any surprises. Two of the four nominations were won by long-recognized directors - Ivan Maksimov (his “Rain from Top to Down” won as best animated film) and Pavel Kostomarov (best documentary “Mother”). The best feature and video films were, respectively, the German-Serbian film “Milan” and the Greek video art Liebestod. Both films clearly stood out from the crowd: "Milan", which takes place in a Serbian village during the American bombing, although made quite traditionally, takes on the exceptional sensuality and simplicity that were once characteristic of Kusturica. As for Greek video art, it was completely distinguished by its integrity and lack of cheap pathos, which was not typical for such a format. That is, again, simplicity - these are four funny sketches about love, made without technical bells and whistles, but so subtly that you are simply amazed.

At Open Cinema, they are awarded not figurines or some comical basket-cardboard paintings, as often happens at provincial festivals, but a strange mechanism: an hourglass, the flow of sand in which can be slowed down, accelerated or even stopped with the help of a small crane. However, these very prizes are not very important - the best proof of the insignificance of the ceremony was that none of the four winners came on stage, and they promised to give the watches to them later.

At the “distribution of elephants”, the festival organizers acted very cunningly - apart from the four main prizes awarded on behalf of the jury, it seems that not a single film was deprived of a prize. Including those shown outside the competition. The creators of the paintings were presented either with cameras or simply with diplomas; no one left empty-handed. Of course, there is something comical about this, and it is not appropriate to do this at important film festivals. But, on the other hand, Mikhail Trofimenkov, who was on the jury, was right when, presenting the prize to the film Liebestod, he recalled the founder of the Parisian Cinematheque, Henri Langlois, and his principle: “All films should be equal to each other.” Yes, they should. But festival conventions are a minor matter.

Ivan CHUVILYAEV, St. Petersburg