The first of its kind Russian Film Festival has come to a close after a successful run and well-received response on India’s biggest OTT platform Disney + Hotstar. Having showcased the best of contemporary Russian films from October 16, film fans and aficionados of world cinema got an opportunity to enjoy entertaining and award-winning stories with a unique flavor and global appeal. Ten films were shown with English subtitles and enjoyed a solid run on this platform with growing interest from Indian audiences.

As ambassador of this film festival, a prominent filmmaker and screenwriter Imtiaz Ali said, “The Russian Film Festival brought very interesting and entertaining films which were appreciated by viewers in India, reiterating the fact that good human stories connect with all audiences. This festival opens doors to many such festivals of Russian films in India.”

Sarfraz Alam, Festival Director, added, “The Russian Film Festival establishes the fact that both India and Russia have a deep love for good cinema. As both Disney + Hotstar, filmmakers who showed their work & Roskino have found this experience enriching, we hope to collaborate on more such cinema-related events.”

The festival showed celebrated and popular romances, dramas, and comedies from Russia. It featured two musical romance movies (the genre that is well received by the Indian audience) – “Ice” by Oleg Trofim and its sequel “Ice 2” by Zhora Kryzhovnikov. “Ice,” tells about a young, ambitious figure skater Nadya who is hospitalized with an injury and gives up her championship dream until she meets a hockey player Sasha… In “Ice 2”, a happily married couple dreams about a child, but the price they pay for their dream is too high…  Both films are included in the TOP 12 highest-grossing Russian films of all time.

Other films shown here- The sports drama “On the Edge” by Eduard Bordukov is based on a true story of the 2016 Olympic Games, – the confrontation between two Russian saber fencers: Sofya Velikaya and Yana Egoyan. The historical drama “The Story of an Appointment” by Avdotya Smirnova; set in the 19th century, an edgy story based on real events unfolds in this acclaimed film. One of the characters is the Great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. The selection also includes the drama “Tell Her” by Alexander Molochnikov. This is a film about failed relationships and a child’s tough choice around divorcing parents. The biographical drama “Doctor Liza” by Oksana Karas, dedicated to the memory of Elizaveta Glinka, one of the main human rights defenders and social activists in Russia.

The festival also featured comedies. A comedy absurdist drama, an adaptation of the play of the same name by Dmitry Danilov “A Man from Podolsk” – the debut of the theatre director Semyon Serzin, who also played the lead role in the Petrov’s Flu, a film of the Official Selection of the 74th Cannes Film Festival. Also, the selection of films includes the comedy “Another Woman!” by Anna Parmas about a wife fighting to keep the marriage after she learns of her husband’s infidelity. A family taking a test for strength is also in the spotlight in another film “The Relatives” by Ilya Aksyonov. A new dramedy “Jetlag” by Michael Idov tells a story about a couple that has a fight en route to an airport. As a result, they end up on different continents in separate love triangles, causing chaos in others’ relationships as they try to fix theirs.

The first-ever online Russian Film Festival in India is organized by ROSKINO with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Cinema Fund, the Moscow City Tourism Committee, Discover Moscow, Rossotrudnichestvo, and with the assistance of Kartina Entertainment. The festival was launched in 2020 and has already been successfully held in 18 countries, with more than 240 thousand viewers.

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