Message2Man/1
Mikhail Litvyakov is the director of the festival in beautiful St. Petersburg. He has passed the seven decades of age but there was no sign of lack of energy when he was on stage to welcome guests and audience in the Dom Kino, to the 20th edition of a festival that includes an international competition, a national competition plus several side programmes. He and the president of the festival, film director Alexey Uchitel, and the rest of us, were pleasantly suffering the heat of St Petersburg when the opening ceremony took place ending with an honorary prize of the festival given to Agnès Varda, who was there to introduce her fine last film, ”Les Plages d’Agnès”, a film with many layers, young in spirit, and also a fine piece of film history presenting clips from her own films such as ”Cléo from 5 to 7” and ”Le bonheur” with constant references to the love of her life, late Jacques Demy.
I am here to chair the international jury for a programme that includes documentaries, animation and short fiction – and to hold a small project development seminar with Ludmila Nazaruk from DoxPro, a continuation of the November 2009 meeting that has been reported on this site.
