Paul Filkow

Trolls in various forms have accompanied mankind from the beginning, depending on how people understood the word each time. They can be people outside society who also symbolise the fears haunting those within it.

Dimitri Venkov’s Krisis is based on a Facebook discussion on December 8, 2013, the day on which pro-European demonstrators in Kiev started to demolish statues of Vladimir Lenin. The film reenacts debates between Russian and Ukrainian artists during the protests, revealing deep aesthetic, historical, and political divisions.

The film is a trip to the planet Muscovy - an upside-down twin city of Moscow in space. As the title of the work suggests, the journey also takes us back in time. Gliding over the surface of the planet, we look down and see historic architectural styles fly by - the exuberant Socialist Classicism, aka Stalinist Empire, the austere and brutish Soviet Modernism, and the hodgepodge of contemporary knock-offs and revivals of the styles of the past. An essential companion to this journey through time and space are Hymnic Variations on the Soviet anthem.

End of days is already here - you just didn't notice...

The Kuril Islands still remain a mystery to the rest of the world. The popular science film "Land of the People" rediscovers the unique territory of the Kuril Islands, with their unique human and natural wealth. Repeating the route of the first colonists, the viewer will get acquainted not only with the extraordinary beauty of this distant land, but also with the modern inhabitants of the islands, people of outstanding professions, somewhere adventurers, somewhere simply strong and strong in spirit, who live in places far from modern civilization, where there is neither the Internet, nor cellular communication, nor other items of everyday life most familiar to the continent.

The Shining Will Come Crashing Down

Iceland’s forest cover – past and present, destruction and recovery, exploitation and hope.

An immigrant in Istanbul, the Russian filmmaker finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, his legal status becomes uncertain amid the turbulence of Turkish presidential elections, on the other hand, the crackdown on dissent in Russia makes his return impossible. In these circumstances he turns to the legacy of Moscow conceptualism, an art movement, which existed under the radar of Soviet authorities, to make a film that would convey his sentiment yet pass through the needle’s eye of censorship.