The second program of the shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival 2020 national competition features Russian shorts of very different genres and styles, including a dreamy romcom (Alexandra Saran), a terrorist thriller (Nikita Grushin), a surrealist essay on motherhood (Nina Volova), and others. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the makers of the shorts.
Moderator –– Rita Sokolovskaya.
18:00–19:30Garage Auditorium
A taxi driver circles around a provincial town day and night and scares clients with his manic stare: the kind of a driver you would think twice about before getting in his car. Here he sleeps and has a cigarette for breakfast. One day he gives a ride to a young graffiti artist.
Day and Night and Day and Night
Director Timofey Zubrov-Andreev
Russia, 2020. 16 min. 18+
A young man is planning to explode a bomb in a shopping mall, but everything goes wrong. A clever psychological thriller, Firework brings to mind Nocturama by Bertrand Bonello and Julia Loktev’s Day Night Day Night.
Firework
Director: Nikita Grushin
Russia, 2020. 18 min. 18+
In a dreamy rom-com about a day in the life of five Muscovites, a marriage proposal in a restaurant turns into a trip to intensive care; a nurse decides to break up with the doctor she is dating, and a taxi driver who lives in her house tries to win her heart.
A Theory of Random Events Probability
Director: Alexandra Sarana
Russia, 2020, 21 min. 16+
This is a heart-wrenching chronicle of a relationship between a superstitious mother from Yekaterinburg, and her homosexual son, who has moved to Moscow. The protagonists are never seen onscreen: we can only hear their telephone conversations. The Year of the White Moon is the winner of the 18th Spirit of Fire Festival and the National Competition of the Moscow International Experimental Film Festival.
Open up, It’s Mom
Director: Nina Volova
Russia, 2020. 17 min. 16+
In Yekaterinburg, developers are planning to build a mall in the place of a park near a school. Teacher Ivan Kovalyov—a dedicated environmentalist—puts up a tent in the park where his biology class now takes place. His colleagues are skeptical of his idea.
Ecology Lesson
Director: Ivan Sosnin
Russia, 2019. 19 min. 12+
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the makers of the shorts.
Rita Sokolovskaya is a curator and producer of cultural projects. She has curated special programs of film screenings for Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Higher School of Economics (Moscow), and New Holland Island (St. Petersburg). As part of the 2020 MIEFF, she organized the first Barbara Hammer retrospective in Russia.
Standard: 400 RUB
Tickets for seniors, veterans, large families, under 18s, and visitors with disabilities (with one carer): 200 RUB*
Films will be shown in original language with Russian subtitles.
Screening accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing.
*Please bring proof of eligibility
