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On November 4 – 9, 2023, Sochi, for the first time, will host the XVIII International Film Festival “WON TOGETHER”. Its main goal is an honest creative dialogue between documentarians from Russia and the world. This is the largest film forum, in which over 300 professionals and more than 100 representatives of the foreign film and television industry participate.
This year the Vladimir Menshov Film Festival will again become a platform for international exchange of experience, where competitive and non-competitive screenings, master classes from leading film industry specialists, conferences and industrial events will take place within a large business cluster.
The organizers of the festival are the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly and the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio. The film forum is held with the support of the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Administration of the city of Sochi.
The opening ceremony of the annual documentary show will take place on November 4 at the Winter Theater (Sochi).
The new president of the festival is the outstanding cinematographer, People's Artist of Russia, director and screenwriter Vladimir Khotinenko. He will take an important post and lead the further development of the annual documentary show “WON TOGETHER”. This was announced on October 5, 2023 at a press conference in TASS by the Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the film forum, Andrei Belianinov.
Despite the fact that patriotism and the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War remain the tuning fork of the film festival, this year one can observe interesting thematic transformations. Valery Ruzin, General Producer of the festival, Deputy Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly, Chairman of the Assembly Council on Cooperation in the Eurasian Media Space, President of the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio (Russia) spoke about new trends in documentary films:
“In addition to the themes of war, Nazism, the Holocaust, and concentration camps that have become traditional at the festival, new ones appeared - the authors began to talk about regional conflicts. Our special program is dedicated to new territories and the voices of unbroken people. There is also a growing interest in astronautics, the problems of young people, their goals, guidelines, and values in modern society. And what is very interesting is that this year we see the emergence of a new hero - a hero of labor who is happy in his profession.”
Thus, the thematic map of this year’s competition program is very diverse. Modern authors raise issues that concern them, touching on completely different spheres of life, including the Great Patriotic War, fascism and Nazism, the Holocaust, regional and geopolitical conflicts, juvenile justice, astronautics, problems of the younger generation, aviation, the Arctic, Russian history, contemporary art and culture, sports, as well as duty, vocation and people of work.
A distinctive feature of the festival is the structure of the program. As many as six competitions await festival spectators: two of them are documentary film competitions: international and national; four international competitions: television, social film, film school competition and the “History in the Frame” competition.
In total, films from 27 countries will be presented at the festival. It is worth noting that as part of the competition program, the viewer will enjoy a number of premieres.
RUSSIAN PREMIERE:
- “Voices of Oleron” (2022), Stepan Reshetnikov – Russian Federation
- "Why?" (2023), Teodor Geonov – Czech Republic, Bulgaria
- “The Truth About the Squad” (2023), Cui Hongyu – China
- “330 milliliters of memories” (2022), Elham Maroufi – Iran
- “Hide and Seek” (2022), Victoria Fiore – UK, Italy,
- “Armwrestler” (2022), Yorgos Goussis – Greece
- “We were there” (2022), Elen Mkrtchyan, Monika Sargsyan, Stepan Kazaryan – Armenia
- “Zari” (2022), Arman Gholipour Dashtaki – Iran
- “Aeroflot Family” (2023), Sergey Zaitsev – Russian Federation
- “The Universe of Ivan Misko” (2023), Evgeniy Sytko – Republic of Belarus
- “Don't Forget the Two” (2023), Serge Moati – France
- “The only Doctor in the Field” (2023), Victoria Maksoeva – Georgia
- "The Contestants" (2022), Luis Bolline Garcia, Miguel Marin Martinez, Michele Scaramella Cordero, Rodrigo Granda Iglesias - Spain
- "Stranger: The Chinese in Israel" (2023), Liang Yi - Israel
- “Shadow of the Ancestors” (2018), Max Hureau – France
- “Ghosts of Jeju Island” (2012), Regis Tremblay – USA
- “Incident of September 18, 1931” (2022), Shi Peng – China
WORLD PREMIERE:
- “Black Hole Catchers” (2023), Maria Razdorskaya – Russian Federation
- “Dialogue with Newton” (2023), Sergey Golovetsky – Russian Federation
- “The pinnacle of Captain Tarpishchev’s life” (2023), Varvara Orlova – Russian Federation
- “Destination: Rome. Eustace to Fitin” (2022), Anatoly Panikov – Russian Federation
- “Without a statute of limitations” (2023), Igor Michak – Russian Federation
- “The Eagle Rises into the Sky” (2021), Valeria Lovkova – Russian Federation
- “Avdeev. Outer Space (2023), Maxim Kuznetsov – Russian Federation
- “The Right to Happiness” (2023), Ekaterina Alikina – Russian Federation
- “You are my dad” (2023), Nikolay Raisov – Kazakhstan
- “Avenger” (2023), Alexey Martynov – Israel
- “Theater on the Front Line” (2023), Marina Mironova – Russian Federation
Each competition will have a separate jury. The jury members are outstanding professionals, famous figures of art and culture, public opinion leaders from Armenia, Belarus, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Uzbekistan, Sweden and Russia.
In addition to impressive film screenings, the festival will feature an extensive business program of master classes from leading film industry experts. Participants and viewers of “WON TOGETHER” will have a full immersion into the wonderful world of cinema as part of the Creative Doc Workshop, where they will be able to learn a lot about directing and screenwriting, as well as the personal experience of the masters in producing:
Master class by Sergei Miroshnichenko, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, professor at the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S.A. Gerasimov, winner of two state prizes of the Russian Federation and an Emmy award, an outstanding director and teacher.
Master class by Vladimir Khotinenko and Tatyana Yakovleva. Famous film director, People's Artist of Russia, head of the directing workshops of VGIK and VKSR Vladimir Khotinenko and VGIK professor, film expert Tatyana Yakovleva will conduct a joint master class on the topic “Artificial intelligence and the future of cinema”
Master class by director Vladimir Tyulkin (Kazakhstan) “The role of intuition in creating an artistic image in a documentary film”
Master class by director, producer, candidate of art history Vitaly Potemkin - “Watching. Seeing. Writing. Film review: from conception to realization"
Master class by director Tatiana Soboleva - “Documentary cinema as a current form of contemporary art. Search for a topic. Hero".
Master class by director and screenwriter Irakli Kvirikadze - “Tarkovsky and little-known geniuses”
Master class by the rector of the Higher School of Television of Moscow State University Vitaly Tretyakov - “Short course of the information fighter”