Cinema network | Catalogue-2010 | Press-conference info — 3/03

The concept of the VIII International Debut Film Festival of Cinematography «Spirit of Fire»

By order of the Government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area the VIII Festival «Spirit of Fire» will be held in the city of Khanty-Mansiysk in the period of time from February, 26 to March, 3 2010. The Festival in 2010 falls on the Great Jubilee Year of 65-th anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany. Given also the fact that our festival is the first in a series of Russia-wide events to celebrate this anniversary, and realizing the level of responsibility, we nonetheless have decided to dedicate it to this outstanding date of Russia's history.
We will set up a retrospective of the outstanding Russian films about the Great Patriotic War, including the following movies: «The Cranes Are Flying» (dir. M. Kalatozov), «Military Field roman» (dir. P. Todorovsky), «Piece to incoming »(dir. A. Alov V. Naumov)," It was the month of May «(dir. M. Hutsiev),» Ten Days Without War "(dir. A. Herman). We invite the creators of these films, some of which were the front-line soldiers, to present these films to the audience.
We would also like to present films about the War «from a different site» during the Festival: there are few remarkable and famous Western and American films about the World War II that interpret the events from their point of view. The collision of these films promises to be lively and interesting, and there is no doubt that eventually the highest artistic level of presented Russian films will properly defend the indisputable historical values of our country.
In the Children's Club, which we traditionally will continue working on this year, we also will present the outstanding work of Soviet filmmakers in the field of children's films about the Great Patriotic War such as «Ivan's Childhood» (directed by Andrei Tarkovsky), «wounded animal» (directed by N. Gubenko) and others.
In addition to the traditional prizes we have made a decision of founding of the «Commemorative winner’s medal», which will be presented in a stately manner to the honorable veterans of the GPW - both cinematographers and residents of the city of Khanty-Mansiysk.
Sunday 28 February, we intend to hold a big celebration day of the festival dedicated to the jubilee with a demonstration of the movie «It was the month of May», presented by the movie director M. Hutsiev and the leading actor P. Todorovsky. Thereafter the young filmmakers, the hosts of the festival, will give a holiday dinner to the veterans of the GPW.
In the cultural part of the program we have planned a great evening of a military song in which we are counting on the participation of the duo of Peter Todorovsky and Garik Sukachev with a concert of military songs.
Our traditional social programs will be also continued during the Festival. For instance this year we will have a program dedicated to the Teachers Day.
This year we gather a quite extensive program of new debuts. In order to support and attract the attention to the young Russia’s cinema we decided to found 2 new prizes. The main prize for Russian films is still the “Audience Award”, but we have added 2 prizes for the best debut of a young Russia’s film. These new prizes will be awarded in concordance with audience voting as well.
The competition program on which the film critic Andrew Plakhov and the program director of the festival Maria Zvereva have been working, promises to be bright and interesting.

We expect that several major figures of contemporary world cinema will form the jury. For instance we have already received an agreement of an outstanding director Ishtvan Sabo to become a Presedent of International Jury of Festival in 2010
The most interesting films of the world screen over the last year will be presented in a traditional program “euphoria” by Andrew Plakhov.
We will continue the cultural communication cultural of the festival with students and pupils of the city of Khanty-Mansiysk. Master classes will be given at the University by Alexander Mitta and in the secondary schools by Sergey Soloviev.
Both opening and closing of the festival will also be thematically focused on the theme of the Grand National Jubilee. We expect the participation of the Ugra choirs and big brass band of Ugra.
The Design of the Festival 2010 that has been implemented by design-director of the Festival Dmitry Soloviev, is also devoted to the 65th anniversary of the GPW.
The main venue of the festival remains CSC «Ugra-Classic». This year we intend to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the festival with this great cultural center of the Russian North. The films will be demonstrated in the Center of Arts for Gifted Children of the North.
The press-center of the Festival will be located in on of the buildings of the “Ugra Valley” hotel complex.
This year we contemplate to carefully think of timely and fuller acquaintance of a young participants of the festival with each other. Therefore we intend to give a traditional «director's dinner» as early as possible.
We also hope to preserve the good tradition of regular, full, frank and sincere dialogue with the mass-media representatives, with whom the festival has good and serious relationship.
Carrying on the tradition started with a festival a year ago, we want to thoroughly concentrate not only on holiday, but primarily on the business and professional aspects of this important cultural cinematic events in Russia.