VOICES Festival of Vologda, Russia

The first edition of the VOICES Festival - Vologda Independent Cinema from European Screens - took place from July 4th to 9th, 2010, in the beautiful and historic Russian city of Vologda.

The festival revolved around two activities:
Competition: the Competition presented a selection of first and second European feature films
Workshops: master-classes, retrospectives, tributes, professional meetings, round tables... organized throughout the festival, which gave participants the opportunity to exchange views

This festival aspires to be a platform for creation and knowledge and will certainly lead to collaborations in the future.

Presentation

This event aims at taking an investigative look at current European independent cinema; it will be an opportunity to discover new talents.

A dozen of first and second feature films selected from across Europe will be screened for the first time in Russia during the festival.

This festival has an international vocation: each year, a European country will be celebrated. This year, in the framework of the Russia-France year, French cinema is highlighted.

The concept

The VOICES Festival revolves around two themes: the Official Selection and the Workshop.

The Official Selection

The Official Selection includes about forty films and deals with various themes throughout panoramas and retrospectives. The Competition, which is a part of the Official Films Selection, consists of a dozen of first and second European feature films and is the festival's main activity.

Out-of-competition will present around three distinct panoramas featuring recently acclaimed and awarded films from across Europe.

The Workshop

Besides the screening section, the VOICES Festival is also a workshop including various activities aiming at exchanging knowledge and experiences. Participants have the opportunity to attend different master-classes in which professionals (producers, scriptwriters, casting directors...) will talk about their jobs and share their know-how. Round-tables, gathering mainly professionals, follow specific themes and will be a platform of expression and contacts. Such environment represents a unique opportunity for cinema professionals - European and Russian - to meet, interact and evoke new projects.

The 2010 Jury

For this first edition, the jury was composed of six members, well known in the european film industry: Seirgei Bodrov, Alexey Gouskov, Krystof Zanussi, Andrei Khalpakhchi, Daria Moroz and Claude Brasseur.

Jury President: A master of Russian and international cinema, Sergei Bodrov, honored us with his presence as the Jury president.

Russian screenwriter, director and producer Serguei Bodrov is famous for his award-winning films "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes in 1996) and "Mongol" (nominated for the Oscars in 2007).

The festival is glad to welcome him and is positive he will pass on his enthusiasm and passion to the Jury.

The Prizes

For the 2010 edition of the VOICES Festival, these were the prizes were awarded by the jury:
- The Grand Prix, worth 30 000 Euros
- Best Direction Prize
- Best Script Prize
- Best Performance prize

Partnerships

The partners and sponsors of the VOICES Festival 2010 were:
- Ambassade de France en Russie
- VTB
- Volkswagen
- Kodak
- Senatorcompany
- L'OFFICIEL
- The Moscow Times
- Europa Plus
- Kinote
- action!
- LiVEJOURNAL
- And many more...

Press Release after the 2010 Festival

The first edition of the VOICES Festival - Vologda Independent Cinema from European Screens - in the Russian town of Vologda, has closed on the 9th of July, 2010.
Giving the opportunity for young European directors to present their first or second films to the public, press and critics from Russia and Europe, VOICES is a new unique forum for filmmakers. On the banks of the calm Vologda River, 10 films from Poland, Italy, Russia, France, Sweden, Spain and Ukraine were competing for the Grand Prix of 30,000 EUR.

The jury presided by the internationally recognized Russian director, producer and scenarist Sergei Bodrov, united French actor Claude Brasseur, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi, Molodist Kiev Film Festival director Andriy Khalpakhchi and the Ruccian actress Daria Moroz, as well as the famous actor and star of "The Concert" Alexey Gouskov.

The Grand Prix - the silver director's speaker - went to the controversial drama My Joy directed by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. The prize for best acting went to Polish Agata Buzek for her role in Reverse, the film that also won the best director's award. French Jean Mach's and Nicolas Alberny's 8th Wonderland about the web-based international conspiracy, was awarded for the best scenario, while the Italian film Alza la Testa was chosen by the public to receive a people's choice, close to 8,000 people attended its screenings.
French film Qu'un seul tienne et les autres suivront (Silent Voices) won the special jury's prize for the cast.

"The festival is a success, even though it was the town's first cinema experience. We will continue to develop VOICES for it to become one of Russia's main yearly cinema events", said Evgeniy Shulepov, Mayor of Vologda.

Concerning the second edition of the VOICES Festival, from June 30th to July 5th, 2011, our main objective is to gain new experiences and expand our horizons to the most recent European cinemas. As 2011 is the Year of Italy in Russia, Italian Cinema will be celebrated as main focus of the festival. A specific section of the out-of-competition will be dedicated to this country.

The VOICES Festival is an opportunity for young directors to present their first feature films to Russian audience and journalists, and to compete for the Grand Prix.

Same as in 2010, the competition will gather 10 first or second full-length films from all across Europe that will be appraised by a jury composed by 6 international personalities. The winner of the 2010 edition, Sergei Loznitsa, will be part of the jury.