PRESS KIT NEW HOLLAND INTERNATIONAL DEBUT FILM FESTIVAL

ST. PETERSBURG, 2020 Photo: Katya Nikitina High resolution images available at: http://www.newhollandsp.ru/media/nhi_film_festival_2020.zip

New Holland: www.nhifilmfest.com Cultural Urbanization [email protected] +7 (812) 245 20 35 St. Petersburg, Admiralteysky Canal Embankment, 2

facebook.com/nhifilmfest vk.com/nhifilmfest instagram.com/nhifilmfest JURY 2020 MAIN COMPETITION JURY

BAKUR BAKURADZE PHILIP GRÖNING CÍNTIA GIL THANASSIS KARATHANOS ISABELLA EKLÖF

Bakur Bakuradze attended Philip Gröning is a German Born in Portugal, Cíntia Thanassis Karathanos is Isabella Eklöf is a Swedish the Russian State Institute director, screenwriter, cin- Gil studied at the Escola producer and founder of screenwriter and film- of Cinematography (VGIK). ematographer and com- Superior de Teatro the film production compa- maker based in Denmark. His feature debut Schultes poser. He studied at the e Cinema (Lisbon Theatre nies Twenty Twenty Vision She wrote and directed (2008) was selected for University of Television and and Film School). She in Berlin and Pallas Film the 2018 Danish film the Directors’ Fortnight Film in Munich. In 1986 he is the artistic director of in Halle. He has produced Holiday, for which she won programme in Cannes and founded his own film com- Sheffield Doc/Fest. Since numerous films which have four Bodil Awards, includ- won the main prizes at the pany. His documentary Into 2012, Cíntia Gil served as appeared at international ing Best Danish Film. She Kinotavr and Molodost fes- Great Silence (2005) was the director of Doclisboa, festivals and enjoyed box co-wrote Swedish film tivals. His second film, The awarded the Sundance Portugal’s most impor- office success in many Border with director Ali Hunter (2011), was selected Special Jury Prize, and tant and steadily expanding countries. Selected pro- Abbasi, for which they for the Un Certain Regard his feature film debutThe documentary film festival. ductions include: It Must Be were nominated for the programme of the Cannes Policeman’s Wife (2013) was She is also a regular guest Heaven by Elia Suleiman, Guldbagge Award and the Film Festival. Head of pro- awarded the Venice Film on international festi- Ayka by Sergey Dvortsevoy, European Film Award for duction studio Lemon Films Festival Special Jury Prize. val juries including at the Slack Bay by Bruno Dumont, Best Screenwriter. Studio since 2005. Berlinale, Mar del Plata, and Elle by Paul Verhoeven, and FIDMarseille. many others. SHORT FILM COMPETITION JURY

DMITRY VOLKOSTRELOV CARMEN GRAY ANDRÉS DUQUE POLINA KANIS

Dmitry Volkostrelov is Carmen Gray was born in New Andrés Duque is a Venezuelan- Polina Kanis was born in a Russian actor and theatre Zealand, now lives in Berlin. born Spanish filmmaker. His in Leningrad and gradu- director as well as the founder She is a freelance journalist, works have received numer- ated from the Rodchenko Art and director of Teatr Post. film critic, and programmer. ous awards and plaudits at film School in Moscow in 2011. He studied at the Moscow She has written for numer- festivals around the world and Winner of the Kandinsky State Institute of Culture ous publications including The have been exhibited at many Art Prize as Best Young before graduating from the New York Times, The Guardian, museums and cultural cen- Artist (2011) and the Sergey Russian State Institute of The Observer, Sight & Sound, tres. He is the creator of the Kuryokhin Award (2016). Performing Arts. In 2011 in Screen International, The Calvert film Oleg and the Rare Arts about Her work has been featured Saint Petersburg he founded Journal and Senses of Cinema. the life of Oleg Karavaychuk. in numerous solo and group Teatr Post, an independent In 2018, he started a two-part exhibitions, as well as film fes- theatre group that has no per- project on Karelia. tivals. Her films are kept in the manent venue. He has won collections of many museums three Proryv awards as well as and foundations. a Golden Mask national thea- tre award. TEAM 2020 ALEXEY ARTAMONOV ANDREI KARTASHOV President of the Festival Programme Director Curator of the short film competition

Producer of over 30 television series and Film critic and programmer. He has written Film critic. Received a BA in Russian from 40 feature films, covering both auteur about music and cinema for Seance, Saint Petersburg State University (2012), and genre filmmaking, and including Iskusstvo Kino, Afisha, Interview , and an MA in Film and Media Studies Elena, Leviathan and Loveless by Andrey W-O-S, Look At Me, Colta.ru and Kommersant from the University of Kansas (2018). He Zvyagintsev, Sun by Alexander Sokurov, Weekend, among other publications. was an editor at Seance magazine (Saint , The Inhabited Island Artamonov worked as press secretary for Petersburg) from 2014–2016 and has and Stalingrad by , the State Central Film Museum and the also published his writing in a number of Piter FM by Oksana Bychkova, Heat by Message to Man IFF, and editor of Seance outlets, including MUBI, Senses of Cinema, Rezo Gigineishvili, The Duelist by Alexey magazine, the cinema section of the Bumaga, Kommersant, KinoPoisk, and Kino Mizgirev, as well as the international Theory and Practice website, and the syg. TV, as well as working as a guest curator projects Cloud Atlas by Tom Tykwer and ma website. He has curated programmes for the Message to Man IFF. Kartashov the Wachowski sisters and Sin City 2 by for the Media Forum of the Moscow participated in the Berlinale Talents . Since 2016, Alexander International Film Festival, the Message programme in 2014 and is the recipient Rodnyansky has been a member of the to Man IFF and the Lisbon & Sintra Film of the Levitin Prize from the Russian American Academy of Motion Picture Festival, as well as the New Holland: Guild of Film Critics (2015) and the Arts and Sciences. Cultural Urbanisation project. Fulbright scholarship (2016).

THE FESTIVAL IS ORGANIZED BY THE NEW HOLLAND ISLAND: CULTURAL URBANIZATION PROJECT TEAM MAIN COMPETITION

09 FILMS MS Slavic 7 Oroslan Los Conductos

Sofia Bohdanowicz, Matjaž Ivanišin, Camilo Restrepo, Deragh Campbell, Canada, 2019, Slovenia, Czech Republic, 2019, France, Colombia, Brazil, 2020, 64 min, English, 16+ 72 min, Slovenian, 14+ 70 min, Spanish, 18+

A young woman visits a Harvard Based on a short story about the quiet The first feature from a highly promising University library, where she studies the death of an inconspicuous man, this film Colombian director, the recipient of correspondence between the Polish is shot on 16 mm in collaboration with many prizes for his shorts and the poet Zofia Bohdanowiczowa – her the residents of a Hungarian village. winner of the GWFF Best First Feature great-grandmother – and the Nobel Softly experimenting with various Award at the Berlinale 2020, is based Prize nominee Józef Wittlin. MS Slavic narrative forms, Oroslan surpasses the on a true story involving the lead actor. 7 is the library reference code for the box rest of the programme in demonstrating Pinky, a criminal and a drug addict, containing their letters, which she intends one of its central leitmotifs – the escapes from a cult and goes on the to publish. complex interpenetration of the fictional run, descending deeper and deeper into the womb of a gloomy, apocalyptic Who holds the claim to another’s past? Is and the documentary. metropolis. He is looking for the light at it ethical to publish details of the private the end of the tunnel, but finds himself lives of the dead? haunted by ghosts of the subconscious Fiction and biography are closely and his own past. intertwined in this reflective post- mumblecore work from two rising stars of Canadian film, Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell. Blanco en blanco Mom, I Befriended Ghosts Slow Machine

Théo Court, Spain, Chile, France, , 2019, Sasha Voronov, Russia, 2020, 66 min, Russian, Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo, USA, 2020, 100 min, Spanish, 16+ 12+ 72 min, English, 16+

Giraffe maɬni – towards the ocean, The Cloud in Her Room towards the shore Anna Sofie Hartmann, Germany, Denmark, Sky Hopinka, USA, 2020, 82 min, Zheng Lu Xinyuan, Hong Kong, China, 2020, 2019, 87 min, Danish, English, Polish, German, English, Chinuk Wawa, 12+ 101 min, Chinese, English, 18+ 14+ SHORT FILM COMPETITION

24 FILMS Signal 8 Mary, Mary, So Contrary Circulation How to Disappear

Simon Liu, United Kingdom, Nelson Yeo, Singapore, 2019, Oleksiy Radynski, , Total Refusal (Robin Klengel, Hong Kong, USA, 2019, 15 min, 15 min, Chinese, English, 12+ United Kingdom, 2020, 10 min, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf), no dialogue, 6+ no dialogue, 6+ Austria, 2020, 21 min, English, 12+

Electric Swan Party Day Still Working Black Sun

Konstantina Kotzamani, France, Sofia Bost, Portugal, 2019, 17 min, Julietta Korbel, Switzerland, 2019, Arda Çiltepe, Greece, Argentina, 2019, 40 min, Portuguese, 18+ 17 min, French, 12+ Turkey, Germany, 2019, 20 min, Spanish, 16+ Turkish, 12+ News From All Movements Community Gardens Monster God the Other World Should Kill the Wind

Valentina Bek, Russia, 2020, 28 min, Wang Yuyan, France, 2019, 12 min, Vytautas Katkus, Lithuania, 2019, 15 Agustina San Martín, Argentina, Russian, 12+ no dialogue, 6+ min, Lithuanian, 16+ 2019, 10 min, Spanish, 16+

In the Month of Love Perdikaki Up at Night Cracking Sound

Shashank Walia, India, 2019, 31 min, Catriona Gallagher, Greece, Nelson Makengo, Democratic Re- Hanna Kaihlanen, Finland, 2019, 11 Hindi, 12+ United Kingdom, 2019, 37 min, public of Congo, Belgium, 2019, 21 min, Finnish, 12+ English, 12+ min, Lingala, French, 12+ Après nous, le déluge Sun Dog All the Fires the Fire Naked

Félix Fattal, Dorian Jespers, Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis, Kirill Khachaturov, France, 2019, 17 min, French, 16+ Belgium, Russia, 2020, Greece, 2019, 25 min., Greek, 16+ Russia, 2019, 15 min, Russian, 16+ 21 min, Russian, 12+

Cultes Superheroes without A Demonstration Leave of Absence Superpowers

(La) Horde (Marine Brutti, Jonathan Beatrice Baldacci, Italy, 2019, 13 min, Beny Wagner, Sasha Litvintseva, Anton Sazonov, Debrouwer, Arthur Harel), France, Italian, 12+ Germany, Netherlands, Russia, 2019, 12 min, 2019, 12 min, no dialogue, 16+ United Kingdom, 2020, Russian, 16+ 25 min, English, 12+ SPECIAL SCREENINGS

02 FILMS Zhitiye Goreslava Chuzhdozemnogo Danton’s Death

Evgeny E., Greht, Vladimir S., Ivan Sh., Russia, 2019, Andrey Stadnikov, Russia, 2020, 95 min, Russian, 18+ 64 min, silent film, 0+ World Premiere

An experimental feature film, shot by a team of artists The debut feature of a young Russian playwright from Moscow and Saint Petersburg without any institu- and theatre director tells the story of the final days tional or production support. Gloomy but not entirely of the Dantonists, who represented the right wing of devoid of comedy, it represents a rather amusing mix- the Jacobins during the French Revolution. Andrey ture of slapstick, early avant-garde, Švankmajer-esque Stadnikov’s experimental work loosely references the animation and Leningrad Necrorealism. At the heart eponymous play by Georg Büchner, which in many ways of it is the life story of a depersonalised hermit who foreshadowed the documentary theatre of the 20th has been thrown out of historical time and is stuck in century, and draws bold parallels with modernity. The a looped timelessness. This is the story of a solitary war, film focuses on the relationship between Danton and fought simultaneously in external and internal territo- Robespierre and the problems of revolutionary violence ries, while blurring the boundaries between them in the and justice, questioning why the revolution never fails to dreams and reveries of a madman. devour its children. JURY SELECTION

06 FILMS Ayka Brother Dejan

Sergey Dvortsevoy, Kazakhstan, Russia, Germany, Poland, Bakur Bakuradze, Russia, Serbia, 2015, China, 2018, 110 min, Russian, 16+ 113 min, Serbian, Russian, 16+

A young woman who has arrived in a freezing Moscow A film based on the final year in the life of Bosnian War in search of work is forced to leave her newborn child general Ratko Mladić, before his arrest and extradition to in the maternity ward. Very soon, however, her ability to the Hague Tribunal. The latest directorial work of one of the come to terms with the separation will be tested. most interesting auteurs in Russian cinema was featured in the main competition at the Locarno Film Festival. The for- The second fiction feature by celebrated documentary mer general Dejan Stanic is forced to take refuge at various filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy was six years in the mak- secret bases while hiding from the tribunal. For reasons of ing. The premiere took place in the main competition health, his associates transport him to a remote village high at the , where the lead actor Samal up in the mountains. There, the lonely old man builds a rela- Yeslyamova received the Best Actress award. tionship with a new reality and a new environment one step at a time. He is always on the verge of death, but for some reason fate forces him to live. Into Great Silence Karelia: International with Monument

Philip Gröning, Germany, France, Switzerland, 2005, Andrés Duque, 162 min, no dialogue, 6+ Spain, 2019, 90 min, Russian, 18+

A documentary feature about a monastic order whose This is the director Andrés Duque’s second film shot in members keep a vow of silence. The film was awarded the Russia, after Oleg and the Rare Arts. Sundance Special Jury Prize. The film explores the mysterious forests of a remote The action takes place at Grande Chartreuse, a secluded territory on the Finnish–Russian border, an idyllic set- Carthusian monastery deep in the French Alps. There is ting where shamanic magic and the historical trauma almost no human speech in the entire film, and the silence is of Stalin’s purges intersect. The expressive, inquisitive interrupted only by the ringing of bells. The film documents camerawork and a deliriously idiosyncratic approach the everyday lives of a group of monks who live by twilight; the to editing create a wild, hallucinatory portrait of a place monastic cells are illuminated by candles alone. They sleep that still bears the traces of ancient folkloric custom on benches covered in straw, and heat their dwellings with and the wounds of the past. small tin stoves. The snow-capped Alps provide a magnificent backdrop to the sacred quest of the film’s subjects. By night, the monks gather in a stone chapel where the piercing cold prevails, sitting on the floor and singing Gregorian chants. The Shift The Soldier

Dmitry Volkostrelov, Polina Kanis, Russia, 2011, 32 min, Russian, 18+ Russia, 2016, 28 min, no dialogue, 14+ Microseries about the creation of The Soldier, a play by One of the recent video works by Polina Kanis, the recip- leading Belarusian dramatist Pavel Pryazhko. ient of the Kandinsky Art Prize and the Sergey Kuryokhin Award for Contemporary Art. The piece explores how a Pavel Pryazhko is best known for his experiments with closed system functions, as well as the idea of presence theatrical scripts. His most recent endeavour is The within and modifications to it. Soldier (2011), which consists of just two sentences. Theatre director and Golden Mask national theatre The action in the video revolves around the former build- award laureate Dmitry Volkostrelov decides to stage The ing of some kind of closed institution, where the staff Soldier at Teatr.doc. Before the performance he travels are immersed in the ritual of carrying out their duties. to Minsk to visit the author, and then rehearses with the Their only objective is to ensure the stability of a system actor Pavel Chinaryov, hoping to discover an adequate through their physical presence. Everything proceeds in means of engaging with the text. the usual fashion, and only in the final scene is the possi- bility of any change to the established order hinted at.