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Independent Russian Filmmakers Impress Audiences in Telluride and New York
Open World Leadership Center (Washington, DC)
Posted on September 26, 2008
By Open World
TELLURIDE, CO and NEW YORK CITY – Four Russian filmmakers—including a former puppet-play director and a Georgian-born Muscovite who trained as an auto mechanic—brought their award-winning works and unique perspectives on film to the renowned Telluride Film Festival in Colorado and to audiences in New York City during an August/September exchange conducted by Open World and CEC ArtsLink.
The four Open World delegates—Roman Artemyev, Bakur Bakuradze (the Georgian-Russian), Valeria Ivanovskaya, and Natalia Uglitskikh (the puppet-play director)—had all won awards for their films at festivals across Russia last year. The works they screened during their Open World visit ranged from Uglitskikh’s Tag—a hilarious continuous-take short about a man suddenly exposed to the world who must fend for himself—to Bakuradze’s bleak Shultes, about a Moscow pickpocket’s road to self-discovery; and from Artemyev’s Tasya, a heartwarming depiction of a human encounter caused by a missed train, to Ivanovskaya’s What is the Year, which explores, without dialogue, the effect of an unnamed war on two families.
At the Telluride Film Festival, the Russians met festival cofounder Tom Luddy, director David Fincher (whose credits include Fight Club and Panic Room), and producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy; compared notes with fellow filmmakers from around the world; and viewed film screenings. And Uglitskikh’s Tag and Artemyev’s Tasya were shown during two short-film programs attended by more than 1,500 people.
In New York City, the delegates presented their featured works at Anthology Film Archives and at Tribeca Cinemas, home of the Tribeca Film Festival, offering New Yorkers a chance to view some of the best examples of New Russian Cinema and then discuss them with their creators during post-screening Q-and-A sessions. The delegates also shared their views on contemporary Russian cinema during an open discussion at Pravda Bar moderated by Voice of America’s Michael Gutkin.
The Open World Russian Cultural Leaders Program is financially supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
National Grantee: CEC ArtsLink.
[Reprinted with Permission]
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