OPEN CINEMA_2008

IV INTERNATIONAL SHORT
AND ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL
OPEN CINEMA
Saint-Petersburg, 8-16 August, 2008

Venues:
8-10 August
beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress
11-16 August
cinema hall DOM KINO, cinema hall MIRAZH-CINEMA
16 August – cinema hall DOM KINO
the closing event and awards ceremony

.......jury line-up
....competition
...... retrospective screenings
.... panorama

. ...open-air : labyrinth
.......venue: "DOM KINO" cinema-hall
.......venue: "MIRAZH-cinema" cinema-hall

......press-party

......awards

......Organizer:
......Art-centre BEREG
......with support of Saint-Petersburg Government &
......Saint-Petersburg Cinematograph Union

IV INTERNATIONAL SHORT & ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL . O P E N . C I N E M A . 2008 .
RUSSIA . SAINT-PETERESBURG . 8 - 16 AUGUST .
______________________________________________

OPEN CINEMA, the biggest and most ambitious cinema forum of short films in Russia as well as the only Russian open-air film festival, is about to start its 4th session in August 2008 where you’ll find any kind of films: from animation and documentary to video-art and experimental musical video. The festival Expert Council headed by Irina Evteeva, a famous film director, worked really hard to sort out hundreds of received films and select the best ones for the festival program. This year the international line-up of the festival jury is presided by the film-director and President of the Saint-Petersburg Cinematograph Union Dmitry Meskhiev.

As for the informational non-competitive section, it includes films of 18 international festivals, few national film-schools and film-studios as well as programs received from the European distributors of short films and animation.

OPEN CINEMA 2008 will starton the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress on 8-10 August. On 11-16 August the festival will continue in the cinema halls DOM KINO and MIRAZH simultaneously.

LABYRINTH
On the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress
Daily from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., open-air venue

The Neva River perspective spreading out from the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress implies the openness and mere’s freedom as well as aristocratism of the architectural contours which mould its space. OPEN CINEMA is emerging on the basis of this paradoxical combination of the open and closed: it aims to promote the elitist authored film for the wide audience. The festival concept of LABYRINTH backs up the whole idea: the closed – in the open…

Labyrinth isn’t only a puzzle for body and mind, it is a specific world mould which rejects an ordinary logic and mechanical thinking. Labyrinth is a mythological pattern full of enigmas and metamorphoses where you’re pursuing only one goal - to obtain freedom.

Theme #1, central. Film Labyrinth
Films for competition as well as various festivals’ film programs for the non-competitive section will take the audience to the Film Labyrinth. It’ll be a non-stop program of authored films, popular animation and musical works.

Theme #2. Theatre Labyrinth
Two amazing theatres AKHE and BARBUZONY will lead the spectator to the Theatre Labyrinth. AKHE proves to be professional in the sphere of ‘formal metamorphoses’ and the labyrinth is its familiar environment. Every day on the beach the theatre will perform one of three different stories ofthe myth.

Theme #3. Musical Labyrinth
YOEL GONZALEZ and POLINA FRADKINA, creators of the IN-TEMPORALIS project, will invite the audience to the Musical Labyrinth. It’s not possible to define the music they’ll play: from Afro-Cuban singing to Brazilian and Mexican rhythms and then to the European classical music.

Theme #4, but not last. Puzzle Labyrinth
Design group “Mood Generator” with its new project ART-ATTRACTIONS will suggest to smart and active ones to join the games with art-objects.

Festival Program

The program consists of two sections – “LABORATORY OF DISCOVERIES” (competitive) and PANORAMA 360º (non-competitive). Films for the competition released in 2006-2008 will be nominated for

- best fiction
- best video-art/experimental film
- best non-fiction
- best animation

The winners of ANIMA MUNDI 2007 (Brazil), TAMPERE Festival 2007 (Finland), SUNDANCE-2007 (USA) and many others are taking part in the competitive section of OPEN CINEMA. Non-competitive section PANORAMA 360º presents programs of the leading international short film festivals.

Among them:

FilmFesT Dresden - International Short Film Festival (Dresden, Germany) is the second largest European festival which is going to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year!

Ottawa International Animation Festival (Canada) proves to be one of the leading and most prominent animation film festivals.

French cinematographic school European Spiritual Film Festival (Paris, France), Les Inattendus Film Festival (Lyon, France), and the film company SACREBLEU PRODUCTION (Paris, France).

NORWEGIAN FILM INSTITUTE (Oslo, Norway) program of 2005-2006 will be presented by film-director and video-artist Dimitri Lurie with support of the Norwegian Cinematographic University. Among the Norwegian films there is a film - holder of the Short Film Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) awarded at Cannes Fim Festival!

International Film Festival «Love & Anarchy» (Helsinki, Finland) will present tough films by young female film-directors.

Basque Distributing Company KIMUAK (San-Sebastian, Basque country, Spain)

Well-known animation studios “PILOT”, “SHAR” and “MELNITSA” (Russia) will offer the last works for our event.
The most interesting works of the OPEN RUSSIAN FESTIVAL OF ANIMATED FILMS (Suzdal, Russia) will also be there.

As well as

IMAGO INTERNATIONAL YOUNG FILM FESTIVAL (Portugal)
PORTOBELLO Film Festival (London, UK)
Film Festival MADRID EN CORTO (Madrid, Spain)
L’ALTERNATIVA Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
SIGNES DE NUIT Film Festival (Paris, France)
Toulouse Short Film Festival - Sequence Court-Metrage (Toulouse, France)
The Milk Bar International Live Film Festival (USA)
VIENNA INDEPENDENT SHORTS (Vienna, Austria)
DARKLIGHT FILM FESTIVAL (Dublin, Ireland)
KANSK FILM FESTIVAL (Kansk, Russia)
FEMINA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Rio-de-Janeiro, Brasilia)
ST KILDA Film Festival (Australia)
SAINT-PETERSBURG DOCUMENTARY FILM STUDIO (St. Petersburg, Russia)

___________________________________________________________
address:
ART - CENTER “BEREG”
RUSSIA, 197022, Saint-Petersburg,
Kamennoostrovsky street, 27-16

opencinema@inbox.com