The Moscow International Film Festival presents A Tribute to Rob Nilsson, a Retrospective of films by San Francisco director/writer/actor Rob Nilsson to be held during 33rd annual festival June 23-July 2, 2011. The Retrospective will feature NORTHERN LIGHTS, co-directed by John Hanson (Camera d’Or at Cannes, 1979); HEAT AND SUNLIGHT, (Grand Prize at Sundance, 1988); NEED, from the 9 @ Night Film Series (San Francisco Film Critics Circle Marlon Riggs Award, 2008) and IMBUED, starring Stacy Keach (2009).

Nilsson’s work—which John Cassavetes has called “beautiful, exciting, imaginative, unfamiliar and outside of that, very good”—has featured cinematography by San Francisco DP Mickey Freeman, and roles from actors such as Ron Perlman, Bruce Dern, Pam Grier, Stephen Lange and Robert Viharo. His films have been produced by David and Carol Richards and San Francisco producers Michelle Allen, Marshall Spight, Beth LaDove and Steve and Hildy Burns, with music, sound cutting and mix by Al Nelson and the Noise Floor.

Four of the five Retrospective films are San Francisco productions and NORTHERN LIGHTS, shot in North Dakota, also features interiors shot on San Francisco locations. From 1992- 2005 Nilsson worked with his San Francisco Tenderloin Y Group, conducting acting classes and making feature films with the homeless, inner city residents, local actors and all comers. Nilsson Retrospectives and Lifetime Achievement awards include Mill Valley, Kansas City, St. Louis, Fargo, Syracuse, Yerevan in Armenia, and Silver Lake in Los Angeles. The Filmmaker’s Alliance of Los Angeles gave him their inaugural Nilsson Award in 2008 which Nilsson now curates annually.

“To be recognized in the land of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekov, Mayakovsky, Isaac Babel and my favorite director, Elem Klimov is humbling to say the least,” says Nilsson, whose latest film WHAT HAPPENED HERE?—which he describes as “a road movie/essay about Leon Trotsky, virtue and political certainty”—will be his 30th feature film.

One of the most desired Russian films of the year, Aleksandr Zeldovich & Vladimir Sorokin's Mishen / Target will take part in Gala-screenings program of the 33 MIFF.

The film, starring Maksim Sukhanov, Justine Waddell, Danila Kozlovsky, Vitaly Kishchenko, Daniela Stoyanovich, tells the story which takes place in Russia in the year 2020. The country is booming. Vast mineral deposits and the mighty Guangzhou–Paris transportation corridor ensure healthy balance at the treasury. At the same time, the political system has managed to merge Russian traditions with international developments, so now Russia is an ecological democracy where every citizen has found his rightful place. In order to be correctly placed in this social hierarchy, every few years, all Russians are required to take an exam. The four protagonists of this film are members of the country’s elite.

Victor is a minister responsible for the state’s natural resources. Zoya is his wife. Her brother, Mitya is a well-known television celebrity and Nicolai is a colonel assigned to the Guangzhou–Paris rail corridor. They have everything that money can buy. What they lack is youth and happiness. But they are determined to recover both. Somewhere in the Altai mountains there is a secret plant, once an institute of astrophysics during the Soviet era, that contains a large dish, known as the ‘target’. For anyone who’d spend certain amount of time in its centre, it would be like stepping into a fountain of youth, and their minds and bodies would be rejuvenated …

Probably the more hyped-up a brand is the further it is removed from the initially intended meaning and the more it reveals the meaning of the material itself.
When we compiled the first programs in the series “Socialist Avant-gardism”, our guiding principle was the revolutionary form, which turned out to be synonymous with the form of revolution, aesthetic and social simultaneously. A revolution means going beyond generally accepted norms. From this standpoint the principles of selecting films for the program remain largely the same. It is the departure from accepted canonical norms that unites so dissimilar films in the section. The overthrow of old norms as a new norm is demanded by a revolution from everyone without exception. But every year our program devotes more and more attention to films whose authors go beyond what is generally accepted, guided by their own personal project without insisting that everyone should follow in their wake. That is why practically every film in the present program has a distinct flavor of – so to speak – attractive strangeness. It is noticeable even in examples of “poetic cinema of the 60s”, traditionally included into our program, - debut works of Yuri Ilienko “Spring for the Thirsty” (1965, released in late 80s), Bulat Mansurov “Contest” (1963) and “Daughter-in-Law” (1970) by Khodzhakuli Narliev who was director of photography of all Mansurov’a films of the 60s. The point is that this year we focused not so much on the experiment, on playing with form, as on altering the ways of narration. And then the screen biography of Dostoevsky shot in the infamous style of “vulgar sociologism”, becomes a movie by Meyerhold’s pupil Vasily Fyodorov “Dead House” (1932), an inner monologue of the rebel crushed by the system. While the industrial drama about the reconstruction of mines in Donbass called “Dreamers” (1934) by the completely forgotten scriptwriter and director David Marian turns out to be a series of philosophical dialogues about whether “man exists for the revolution or the revolution exists for man”.
A remarkable effect was achieved by transferring the events of the civil war onto the circus arena in “Two-Buldi-Two” by Lev Kuleshov and “The Last Attraction” by Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Ivan Pravov, which back in 1929 were considered a malicious digression from innovative principles… Or the immersion of a fairly simple and charming everyday-life story into the sultry atmosphere of a southern town in Rezo Esadze’s fantastic “Love at First Sight” (1976)… Or the loneliness of man in the unbearable empty expanses of Russia in “Out of Boredom” (1968), Gorky’s cruel story, brilliantly put to the screen by Artur Voitetsky with the purely Chekhovian intonation… And how smartly Hašek’s biography is turned into an eccentric buffoonery in “Thoroughfare” (1963) anticipating the cinema of Poloka, Motyl, Rasheev… It is hard to imagine that the director is Yuri Ozerov, the future author of “Liberation”, “Soldiers of Freedom” and other pompous “artistic-documentary” epics. Similarly in his directorial debut "Roll-Call” (1966), where the destinies of a tank crew of the Great Patriotic War and a modern cosmonaut are interlaced, Daniil Khrabrovitsky is easily recognized as the author of the classic “Thaw-time” films “Clear Sky” and “Nine Days of One Year” and not as a director of the official films of the ensuing decade “Taming the Fire” and “Poem about Wings”.
Incidentally, many of the “eccentricities” in the movies included in the program are accounted for by the fact that many of them were made by artists who had switched to directing from other arts. It is not only the former cameramen – Ilienko, Narliev, Karen Gevorkian (he is represented not by the famous “A Piebald Dog: Running on the Edge of the Sea” but by his first feature of 1974 “Here, on This Crossroads” which won a prize at the IFF in Manheim in 1974). There are theatre people – Vasily Fyodorov, Anatoly Efros who very accurately interpreted Emmanuil Kazakevich’s novella “Two People in the Steppes” as an existential parable. There is Boris Babochkin, who foretold the aesthetics of the cinema of the early Thaw in his masterpiece of 1944 “Native Fields”. There are literary men: besides Khrabrovitsky there is a great poet of the war-time generation Grigory Pozhenian: in his only directorial work “Farewell” (1966) a war episode is accompanied by a unique poetic commentary in the form of a recitative performed y Mikael Tariverdiev. This “outside” approach to the aesthetics of cinema makes such works especially interesting, definitely unconventional even though amateurish in some ways.
But “strange cinema” inevitably ends up on the roadside of classical mainstream (even if at the time of the release some of its examples were welcomed). It is forgotten for years and then with excitement and amazement we rediscover in it the signs of the cinematic trends of the ensuing decades.
Or even those which are still to become trends. If cinema is capable of remaining a full-fledged art of course.
Evgeniy Margolit

DVA-BULDI-DVA, Lev Kuleshov, Nina Agadzhanova
DVOE V STEPI, Anatoliy Efros
MECHTATELI, David Mar'yan
MYORTVIY DOM, Vasiliy Fedorov
NEVESTKA, Khodzha Kuli Narliyev
PEREKLICHKA, Daniil Khrabrovitskiy
POSLEDNIY ATTRAKTSION, Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Ivan Pravov
PROSCHAY, Grigoriy Pozhenyan
RODNIK DLYA ZHAZHDUSCHIKH, Yuriy Il'enko
RODNYE POLYA, Boris Babochkin, Anatoly Bosulaev
SHUKUR-BAKHSHI, Bulat Mansurov
SKUKI RADI, Artur Voytetskiy
VELKÁ CESTA, Yiri Ozerov
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, Rezo Esadze
ZDES', NA ETOM PEREKRESTKE, Karen Gevorkyan

For the first time Moscow will host one of the most reputable events of world cinema industry - the International Film Finance Forum Moscow 2011, officially sponsored by Corporate Finance Bank. In the framework of the 33-th Moscow International Film Festival the Forum will be held on 24 June at Radisson Royal Hotel.

International Film Finance Forum is held annually in such cinema capitals of the world, like Cannes, Los Angeles, New York and Singapore, the most powerful figures of the modern business and cinema take part in it. High rates of film industry development in Russia promote the attractiveness of the country for global financial community. Therefore, Moscow is another metropolis, where this largest reputable forum will be held. Following Cannes, where the International Film Finance Forum was the part of the famous Cannes Film Festival in May, in June the Forum will be moved to become the part of the program of the 33d Moscow International Film Festival.

The official sponsor of the International Film Finance Forum Moscow 2011 is Corporate Finance Bank, one of the most dynamic and successful participants in the Russian banking sector. The Forum is organized by the international event-agency Winston Baker, a leader in the entertainment industry, famous weekly magazine Variety, covering the events in the world of show-business, and Parallel Media company, specializing in financing and producing films.

Olga Mirimskaya, the Chairman of the Board of Corporate Finance Bank commented on the prospects for the Forum: “The International Film Finance Forum is an important event in the film industry business. We look forward to discussing new trends and strategies for financing movies, and we hope that this event will be the impetus for the development of film industry in Russia”.

The new strategies for film finance industry, promotion and the search for investments, organization of deals and cooperation with international companies, sales and distribution, risk management in the film industry will be main themes of the Forum.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura will be the lead speaker of the forum. Не formed a production company based on Paramount Pictures and since its inception, the company has produced 16 movies. Most recently di Bonaventura Pictures produced such box-office hits as “Transformers” and “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen,” directed by Michael Bay and starring Shia LaBoeuf; “Shooter,” directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Mark Wahlberg; and the big screen adaption of the popular comic book, “G.I. Joe: Rise Of The Cobra.” They also recently produced the espionage thriller “Salt” for Sony Pictures starring Angelina Jolie and Summit Entertainment's “Red,” an espionage thriller based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. The next production to be released is the third movie in “Transformers” series, “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”, which will world premiere at the 33rd Annual Moscow International Film Festival.

The invited speakers of the International Forum are Chris Carling, a founder of Zephyr Films and producer of the historical drama The Last Station with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in the leading roles, nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe Award; Mark Foligno, the executive producer of the movie The King's Speech, which has become the triumpher of the latest Oscar ceremonie and won in four nominations; Robbert Aarts, CEO of Fintage House BV and producer of the much-talked-of film Enigma with Kate Winslet; Phil Hunt, Managing director of Bankside Films and producer of 17 films, including Accidents Happen with Geena Davis and Shake Hands with the Devil; Bill Lischak, executive producer of the movie Rabbit Hole with Nicole Kidman, nominated for her role in this film for Oscar and Golden Globe Award; Tim O'Hair, Head of Production in Parallel Media and producer of such popular movies as Brotherhood and How to Rob a Bank; Leonard Glowinski, Manager for acquisitions and co-producing of StudioCanal Company and producer of the historical film Alexander with Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell in the leading roles .
Experts from Aramid Capital Partners (UK), Corporate Finance Bank (Russia), IFG Bonds (USA), OddLot Entertainment (USA), Octopus Investments (UK), Parallel Media (USA), StudioCanal (France), Universum (USA) and other financial experts and professionals of the world film industry will hold the floor at the Forum.

The official web-site of the Forum:
www.filmfinanceforum.com

Press release
June 16, 2011
Eurimages Supports Estonian-Finnish co-production „Rat King“
European Council’s co-production fund Eurimages decided to support Estonian-Finnish co-production movie „Rat King“ with 250 000 euros. The decision was made last week at the eurimages meeting in Helsinki, Finland
„Rat King“ is about a schoolboy who is hooked on online gaming and wants to bring the game to another level – into real life.
The shooting of the film took place in Estonia. The director of the film is Petri Kotwica (Finland), who had his last film „Black Ice“ selected to the main competition of the Berlin Film Festival in 2008.
The film is being produced by Making Movies OY in Finland and Allfilm in Estonia. The film is addionally supported by the Estonian Film Foundation, Finnish Film Foundation, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture and the Finnish television channel MTV3.
In 2009 „Rat King“ participated in theTallinn co-production market „Baltic Event“.
Estonia has been a member of Eurimages since 2004. Estonian films that have got the support earlier are “Lotte from Gadgetville”, “The Temptation of St. Tony” and the documentary “Nazis and Blondes”.
The goal of Eurimages (founded in 1988) is to support the European film industry through production and promotion. Eurimages id the only film fund involving all of the 35 member states of the EU. Every year, Eurimages gives out about 24 million euros worth of production money. 90% of the support goes to European co-productions.
Additional Information
Karlo Funk
Head of Production and Development
Estonian Film Foundation
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
phone. +372 627 6064

Eda Koppel
Estonian Film Foundation
Information Manager
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
phone: +372 627 6063

The Croatian documentary musical Marija's Own has made it into the East of the West competition at the 46th Karlovy Vary IFF (July 1 - 9, 2011). Two Polish, one Czech and one doc by Audrius Stonys are part of the documentary competition. The festival will also screen Pavel Kostomarov's I Love You, a slate of Czech docs and a special programme dedicated to music.

Two TVP's films: "Heritage" by Andrzej Barański and "Declaration of Immortality" by Marcin Koszałka have been selected for the Karlovy Vary IFF's competitions. The festival will present 179 feature films and will start on July 1.

The brand new Andrzej Barański's film, to be shown in the Main Competition, has been produced by Skorpion Arte and TVP. It is an adaptation of the novel of a young Polish writer - Zbigniew Pasternak. Zbyszek is dispelled of his studies of law and gets back to home in a small village in a remote part of a country. There he is known by a nick name "Prince" that he earned because of the stories his late father - drunkard used to tell about them being the descendants of an old Slavic clan of Vistulans. This assumed princely origin separated Zbyszek from coevals in the past. Now, when he returns home humiliated by his numerous failures, the adversity brings him closer to the surrounding poor souls, so similar to himself. The film's screenings in Karlovy Vary will be its International Premiere.

Produced by TVP1, "Declaration of Immortality" is a portrait of Piotr "Mad" Korczak - a legend among Polish climbers, who initiated the whole range of various techniques of "conquering" the walls, and was the first to begin to consider climbing as a sport. Now Marcin Koszalka - a film director and one of Piotr's former followers - asks him inevitable questions about the impact of age: How does he deal with a passage of time? How does he perceive youth and growing old? How he expects his end will look like? Piotr "Mad" Korczak's insights on the existential nature of physical activity and at the same time on a nature of filmmaking form a pedestal over which spreads a magnificent and breathtaking picture of human ability to climb over the highest tops and to conquer the most difficult mountains.

The film has been recently awarded at the Tampere Short Film Festival, Trento Mountain Film Festival and got the prestigious Silver Hugo Prize for the documentary film in the Hugo TV Awards 2011 in Chicago. It will take part in the Karlovy Vary's Documentary Film Competition.

more information about the festival:

www.kviff.com

FNE together with Europa Cinemas continues its Cinema of the Month series. In recognition of the hard work and excellence of European cinema operators we choose a cinema from each country covered by FNE each month. We look at the challenges and the successes faced by those cinemas with a special series of interviews that offer insights that other operators can benefit from and a platform for the exchange of ideas. This month we focus on Slovakia and Daniela Hyrosova who is the manager of the Mladost Cinema in Bratislava.

For the second edition of the MIDPOINT program, with the first session taking place during Art Film Fest IFF, 16 projects were selected from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Austria and Myanmar (Burma). In total, 36 young film professionals (writers, directors and producers) will take part in MIDPOINT this year.

4 projects come from Slovakia:
Piko, That's the Czechoslovak Drug! (feature film project); writer: Peter Gärtner, producer: Zuzana Dušičková
Momo (short film project); writer and director: Teodor Kuhn, producer: Jakub Viktorín
Tits and the Oracle (short film project); writer and director: Réka Rózsa, producer: Dominika Fáberová
Try (short film project); writer: Eva Vodičková, producer, director: Sebastian Mayr
MIDPOINT: Central European Script Center is a joint initiative of film schools in Prague, Bratislava, Lodz, Bucharest and Budapest for the development and dramaturgy of European film projects by graduating students and recent graduates.
It offers:
Dramaturgy of film projects
Possibility to experience international cooperation in the stage of script development
Interconnection and networking among scriptwriters, directors and producers, a chance to develop contacts for future cooperation
MIDPOINT program consists of 2 workshops:

Workshop 1
June, 18 – 25, 2011, Slovakia - Trenčianske Teplice (in collaboration with Art Film Fest IFF)
Workshop 2
August 27 – September 3, 2011, Czech Republic
The best projects will be awarded with financial prizes of 1.000 EUR (short film project) and 1.500 EUR (feature film project).

MIDPOINT Workshop 1 in Slovakia is organized by CHARACTER: Film Development Association in cooperation with FAMU Prague, CZ. Partner film schools: VSMU Bratislava, SK, PWSFTViT Lodz, PL, SZFE Budapest, HU, UNATC Bucharest, RO.

MIDPOINT is supported by: MEDIA Programme, Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

More information at:
www.midpoint-center.eu
www.character-fda.eu
www.famu.cz
www.artfilmfest.sk

Toys, a Lithuanian-Belarus documentary planned for completion in March 2012, was selected for the Institute of Documentary Film's 2011 Ex Oriente programme.