Russian Film Festival Brings The Best of Russian Cinema to Disney + Hotstar
Mumbai, 16th October 2021: In a unique collaboration that
international movie buffs will celebrate, the Russian Film Festival will bring
the best of their recent films for Indian audiences on the leading OTT
platform, Disney + Hotstar.
From
October 16 to November 27, this collection of entertaining and intriguing films
will play out on the platform with a focus on wide local audiences.
Ten notable Russian films of various genres
will be available online, introducing films with heroes and storylines that
will be relevant specifically to Indian viewers. With each film, audiences will
get to see an unexplored side of Russia.
Prominent Bollywood
director and screenwriter Imtiaz Ali is the ambassador of the Russian Film
Festival in India. Speaking
about this association, he says, ‘’Russia and India have cultural ties that go
back a long way. Film stars like Raj Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty have been
very popular in Russia and at the same time, Russian music and cinema have been
a part of popular culture in India. Taking this forward is the Russian Film
Festival on Disney+Hotstar in which we are able to see 10 specially curated
wonderful Russian films. I invite all Indian viewers to catch them from 16th
October onwards and forge many more cinematic collaborations between the two
great cultures!’’
Olga Lyubimova, Minister
of Culture of the Russian Federation says,
“The international audience shows interest in Russian films and animation.
Therefore, the Russian Film Festival is one of the most effective ways to
promote domestic content abroad; it helps to strengthen the current links
between the film industries and exchange ideas. Russia and India are already
cooperating in the field of cinematography through the BRICS. I am sure that
thanks to the convenient online format of the festival, we will be able to
expand the audience of the Russian projects and attract new viewers. “
CEO of ROSKINO
Evgenia Markova adds, “We are glad to bring
our Russian Film Festival to India – a country that Russia has a lot in common
within various fields of culture and creative industries. Next year, our
countries will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of
diplomatic relations. Our successful cultural cooperation, especially in the
field of cinema, is now gaining momentum. Just a month ago, one of the largest
Bollywood studios, Yash Raj Films, began shooting a film in St. Petersburg
supported by the Russian rebate program. By the way, St. Petersburg and Mumbai,
where Bollywood is located, are twin cities. Cooperation with the popular
Disney+ Hotstar platform, the dominant in India, will make it possible to
attract the widest audience to the Russian Film Festival. We see great
potential for cooperation between the film industries of Russia and India and
we have high hopes for the upcoming event”.
Sarfaraz Alam, Festival Director, Russian Film Festival adds, “Russian
films offer emotions and genres of all kinds and cover a wide range of stories
that everyone can relate to. As the Indian audience watches more international
content now, this film festival offers them a new form of content to explore
and enjoy. We hope to bring films from Russia regularly to India with this
festival in future.”
Spokesperson, Disney+
Hotstar speaks about this association, “We are excited to welcome ROSKINO’s Russian
Film Festival, for the very first time on our platform, to delight an audience
of millions in India. To celebrate and showcase cinematic excellence, a
carefully curated list of 10 films, for a period of six weeks from October
16th, will be featured. As the home of entertainment in India, our endeavor is
to provide viewers with quality entertainment experiences in a manner that
allows them to immerse themselves in stories they wish to see”.
The
festival brings celebrated and popular romances, dramas, and comedies from
Russia. It features 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 playe 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.
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 will take viewers to an
earlier period – 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 features 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. 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 Mikhail Idov tells a story about a
couple who 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.
All
films at the Russian Film Festival will be shown with English subtitles.
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 14 countries, with more than 200
thousand viewers.
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