Meet-the-artist events, competition shows and special nomination “Who is your hero?”. Hero Festival Krasnoyarsk second day overview.

Second day of the II International Film Festival for Children and Youth “Hero” ended in Krasnoyarsk. Not only the capital of the region but also Norilsk Divnogorsk, Aban and Uzhur had a very busy schedule when both children and adults discovered a lot of interesting facts.

Everyone could see a lot of documentary, feature, and animated films at the Cinema Park in Krasnoyarsk throughout the day. The film Shambhala by the Kyrgyz director Artykpay Suyundukov which is also the winner of Nika award had a premier screening today. Also, Tatyana Miroshnik presented her work Me and Cinema in the documentary film competition where the director reflects on how cinema affects the behavior, emotions, and feelings of children.

The screening of films from Who Is Your Hero program which is one of the most anticipated and exciting parts of the festival were held right after the premier of the picture by Tatyana Miroshnik. All projects from this nomination are created by the youngest participants. They all are under 18. More than 60 applications were received within the framework of the nomination and only 8 of them were qualified for the shortlist including pictures made by three Krasnoyarsk teams. They participated in Make Your Film workshop in November 2021.

We created a laboratory for children Within the Hero Festival where we made films between the first and second festivals. If you are talented, please let us know. We glean talents and hope that we can create our own professional cinema school in Krasnoyarsk region. We plan to teach a course on animated films in Surikov Painting School and Business College. Thus, all students can get a profession here, in Krasnoyarsk region. – said Irina Belova, Director of the Festival.

The second day ended with the publick talk with the director and professor Tatyana Miroshnik and young actors Vitaliya Kornienko and Oleg Chugunov. Experts together with the spectators discussed pictures presented in Who Is Your Hero program. They also gave a piece of advice on strong and weak points of works to authors.

All pictures are united by the fact they are made by children, and it would be interesting to watch by adults as well. Because in order to make films about kids one should understand what excites them right now. I make films and watch them with children because they gave me ideas and it shows their pain points. Envy in Stesha, identity crisis in Underground: what am I, who am I, what should I aspire, or I shouldn’t aspire anything at all? That’s what important for them and it’s good that they speak up in their films. By making movies children understand themselves better and start understanding themselves and the world better. – said Tayana Miroshnik

Festival participants from Divnogorsk had a very exciting program as well. They went on a tour to see the landmarks of the region. Directors, screenwriters, producers, and jury members visited the Eastern entrance of the Stolby National Park and the main viewpoint of the Krasnoyarsk region, located above the mighty Yenisey River admiring the beauties of picturesque nature. The day ended with a competition of full-length feature films in the Energetik cinema in Divnogorsk with the show and meet-the-artist-event with the stars of the festival. Director Vladimir Krivov presented his film My Yeti Friend within the framework of the competition of documentaries. The picture tells the story of Igor Burtsev, an extraordinary and fearless man who devoted his whole life to searching for Bigfoot.

After watching the films, I think it is very important that the film festival for children and youth has a program of documentaries. There is such a generally accepted opinion that teenagers are not interested in watching documentaries, but the fact is that each documentary is a very individual and time-consuming work. Believe me, every film that is presented in the competition program tells about people who love life. And, despite the difficult life circumstances, they do not give up on life, faith, even if they have some special needs. There are films about children from broken families, about children who were given to foster families, where kids talk about themselves. I think it will be very cool if you watch these films. And even better, if one of you set your heart upon documentary films, google it, reads what it is, what a huge number of types and genres of documentaries there are, and decides to try it. – said Ekaterina Golovnya, director, and Head of Central House of Cinematographers.

Screening of an out-of-competition program of short feature films called “Beauty of Performance” took place in the Krasnoyarsk Regional Youth Library. It includes pictures with a special visual style and bright camera work.

Spectators and guests of the region were able to see a special program dedicated to the cultural heritage of Russia in the House of Friendship With Peoples of Foreign Countries. Documentary portraits, essays, sketches about famous cultural figures and others including painter Anatoly Kostyuk, great Russian photographer and artist Alexander Rodchenko, famous Krasnoyarsk sculptor and archaeologist Sergey Krasnolutsky, the legendary Mari hero Onar and the boy Yivan were presented. All of them are the real heroes of our culture.

Meet-the-artist event with Ekaterina Golovnya took place in Dom Kino (Art Cherdak Hall) where all the visitors got a chance to dive in the atmosphere of non-fiction films. Those who admire fiction and animation enjoyed the full-length cartoons Stars of the Seventh Heaven by Elena Turova and Three Heroes and a Horse on the Throne by Konstantin Feoktistov. The directors personally presented their work and answered questions from the audience.

Reference Information:

II International Film Festival for Children and Youth “Hero” is the only one professional international competition for children and youth in Russia from Eastern Siberia to Sakhalin. The founder is the Ministry of Culture of the Krasnoyarsk region, the organizer is Krasnoyarsk State Autonomous Cultural Organization Enisey Kino. The festival takes place once in two years in the Krasnoyarsk region. The President of the festival is Vladimir Grammatikov, Honored Artist of Russia, film director, screenwriter, Disney Company creative producer. The Chairman of the Jury is Vladimir Alennikov, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, film director, screenwriter, writer, and producer.

Jury also consists foreign experts, and the program includes films from Russia and abroad. Meet-the-artist events as well as workshops, lectures, education laboratories, round table and discission platforms will be held during the forum.