About Film Festival

The III International Film Festival “Zerkalo” named after Andrei Tarkovsky was held in the Ivanovo region from May, 25 till May, 31. The program of the Festival included competitive program of fiction movies, 9 programs of screenings, cultural and excursion programs. 124 movies were shown during the Festival; 18000 spectators from Ivanovo, Yurievets, Kineshma, Plyos and Shuya visited the screenings; 60 live-talks were organized.

The competitive program consisted of 10 films. More than a half of the pictures presented on competition were Russian premieres. The art level of all the films met the requirements of international festivals level. Some of the films had already won recognition of many film-forums, but remained unnoticed in Russia.

The Program «New Russian films» demonstrated the whole scale of modern Russian cinema that pictured different sides of our modern life. Such films as “Passenger” (director Stanislav Govorukhin), “Roof” (director Boris Grachevsky), “Secret of the Siberian Princess” (director Vladimir Грамматиков), “Zaza” (director Andrei Silkin) aroused special interest.

The animation program “Animation family merry-go-round” was represented by the authors of the leading animation studios “Christmas Films”, “Pilot”, “Master-films”, “Soyuzmultfilm”. Some series of a film magazine that is loved by children and adults were shown in the program “Funny stories in the film magazine “Yeralash””.

This year because of the numerous requests of Ivanovo dwellers the program of a film festival included Andrey Tarkovsky retrospective; retrospective “Towards the 85th  anniversary of “Mosfilm”” was also organized; the program “VGIK, the mirror of time” was devoted to the 90th anniversary of All-Russia state university of cinematography named after  S.A.Gerasimov.

The program “The Birth of Art” was focused on the people of cinema.  A film about Andrei Tarkovsky, caught by the camera in Armenia in 1965, when he was looking for some material for the shooting.  The footage which had been previously unknown, but had been already shown throughout the world, was presented in Russia for the first time. The Italian documentary immersed the audience  into the poetic world of Tonino Guerra, while Russian films uncovered the worlds of Elem Klimov, Sergey Nikonenko, Tatyana Skabard, Yury Raksha.

The Documentary panorama of the film-forum broadened its boundaries – there were three Canadian films and a Danish one. Main characters of the documentaries were composers, photographers, artists, movie distributors, and even the Soviet film management of the time when Tarkovsky’s masterpieces were created. In one way or another all the documentaries were associated with Andrei Tarkovsky.

In a program “Krzysztof Zanussi Retrospective” the works of the famous Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi were presented. Retrospective screeningwere organized towards the 70th anniversary of the director.

A director, a scriptwriter, a producer, and a national artist of Russia Sergey Solovyev was the guest of honour of the Festival. His film “ASSA” (1987) became one of the basic events in a cultural life of the USSR in the second half of the 1980’s. The sequel of a legendary picture “2-ASSA-2” was presented to Ivanovo spectators.

The head of the festival programs Sergey Lavrentiev while selecting the competitive films was guided by the following criteria: all the films should be created in A.Tarkovsky's aesthetics, they should continue the creative work of the master, and pay attention to a human life far away from noisy megacities.

Director of the Russian programs of a film festival was Nikolay Evlyukhin, who had a great experience of working at the largest and most prestigious film-forums of our country. All the variety of the Russian cinema was presented on IFF “Zerkalo”: the so-called “new cinema” (fiction movies, animation, documentary), different retrospective screenings.

The Head of the documentary panorama was Galina Dolmatovskaya – the Doctor of study of art, the Head of the Department of documentary cinema in the Scientific Research Institute of Cinematographic, the author of the books about home and foreign cinema, the film director. While choosing the documentaries she tried to approach the phenomenon which constituted the meaning of Tarkovsky’s life and which was defined by the slightly high-flown term “creativity” with all the ensuing thorns and daring of the artist.

During the IFF “Zerkalo” 60 creative meetings were organized (instead of 30), at the very first day of the Festival 17 meetings with actors and film directors, represented their films, were held.

Alongside with traditional places of film-screenings (in Ivanovo: movie centres “Iskra”, “Lodz”, “Sovremennik”; Shuya: “Rodina;  Kineshma: “Passage”, Plyos: “Plyos”), screenings also were held in a hall of the Regional Coordination-methodical center of culture and creativity and a new multiplex “Formula of cinema”.

Opening and closing ceremonies took place in the hall of the Ivanovo musical theatre. The ceremonies were led by the Honored artists of the Russian Federation Y.Rutberg and A.Lobotsky.  It already became a tradition to broadcast opening and closing ceremonies of a film festival onto street screens on Pushkin square and Revolution square.

Visit to the native land of Andrei Tarkovsky – Zavrazh’e village of the Kosrtoma region – was a bright event of the Festival. All the visitors and participants of the Festival were extended a cordial welcome; a concert program and a visiting of a museum of A.Tarkovsky were organized for them. There, on the coast of Volga River, in a church where Andrei Arsenievich had been christened, requiem in memory of the master took place. Guests of the Festival visited Andrei Tarkovsky's museum center then went to Yurievets on a ferry, also an opening of the exhibition, devoted to the 35th anniversary of film “Mirror” in a museum of art and history was organized. There were performances with the participation of such collectives as a group “Trigon” (Moldova) and amateur performances took place.

From May, 25th till May, 31st IFF “Zerkalo” were attended by nearly about 40 thousand spectators.

The cultural program of the festival included daily excursions with visiting of museums and memorable places of the Ivanovo land:
- Regional museum of industry and art named after D.G.Burylin – a patron of art, a manufacturer, and a collector;
- Museum of Ivanovo printed Cotton  will show the history of development of textile manufacture in the Ivanovo land from ancient times up to now;
- Museum named after a patron of art and a People’s Artist of Russia A.I.Morozov;
- The house-museum of an artist B.I.Prorokov;
- A museum of the First Soviet of People’s Deputies;
- The Tsvetaevs’ museum will acquaint visitors with  life and  creative heritage of three generations of the Tsvetaevs (the Ivanovo district, Novotalitsy settlement).
- State museum of Palekh art (the Ivanovo district, Palekh settlement).
- The house-museum of the People’s Artist of the USSR P.D.Korin will tell history of several generations of Palekh icon-painters (Palekh settlement).
- The house-museum of the founder of Palaekh lacquered miniature I.I.Golikov (Palekh settlement).
- A studio-museum of sculptor N.V.Dydykin (Palekh settlement) – the author of Pushkin monument in St.Petersburg.
- The Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which was constructed in 1774 and that is  well-known for image of the Shuya-Smolensk Mother of god by Palekh artists.
- Culture preserve in Plyos. Plyos was founded in 1410 by prince Vassily I. Nowadays this small Volga town became a place of pilgrimage for artists. Absence of the industrial enterprises, remoteness from railways allowed keeping all the beauty of vicinities and provincial calmness up to nowadays. There are many expositions in it, the main of which is the house-museum of I.I. Levitan. The poetical beauty of Plyos and Volga inspired the artist with new artistic materials: “Silent Monastery”, “Eternal Peace”, “Evening. Golden Plyosl”. All in all for three summers in Plyos I.Levitan painted about two hundred works, including 23 big pictures.
- All-Russia specialized trading complex “Textile-Profy Ivanovo”;
- Yurievets – the birthplace of Andrei Tarkovsky and Zavrazh’e village where in 1932 Tarkovsky was christened.

Within the limits of the Festival an International scientific conference “Andrei Tarkovsky Phenomenon in a context of a world film-process” was held. The sister of the film-director – Marina Arsenievna Tarkovskaya – took an active part in preparation for it. Among the participants of the Conference were film critics, film historians and artists from Russia, England, Denmark, Italy, Spain and France.

Among the visitors of the Festival were the famous Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, a young Polish actress Julia Petrukha, the national artist  of Russia, director Sergey Solovyev, the national artist of Russia Stanislav Govorukhin, Valentina Talyzina, Irina Miroshnichenko, Lydia Fedoseyeva-Shukshina, Natalia Bondarchuk, Jury Nazarov, the honored artist of the Russian Federation Vladimir Grammatikov and many others.

All in all there were nearby 400 participants and visitors of the Festival.

About 150 journalists were accredited at the Festival: “Mir novostey”, “Moskovskaya Pravda”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Vedomosti”, “Kommersant”, “Vremya Novostey”, “Culture”, “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, “Krasnaya Zvezda”, “Novie Izvestiya”, “Gazeta”, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, “Rabochiy Kray”, “Ivanovskaya Gazeta”, “TV-Center”, “REN-TV”, “TVC”, “NTV”, “RBC”, “Mayak” and others. More than 200 publications in printed mass media and coverage of the film-forum in all central and regional TV-channels became the result of their work.

As a whole, we may consider the III International film festival “Zerkalo” named after Andrei Tarkovsky to be led on a high organizational level and the purpose of the festival – to inform up good and interesting cinema to the spectator – to be executed.