27th Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival : IDFA
Amsterdam (Netherlands) - 19 November 2014 - 30 November 2014
http://www.idfa.nl/
 
Kamchatka - The Cure for Hatred
Kamchatka - The Cure for Hatred, 2014

(Камчатка - лекарство от ненависти)


Yulia MIRONOVA
(Юлия МИРОНОВА)

Yulia MIRONOVA
Red Army
Red Army, 2014

(Красная армия)


Gabe POLSKY
(Гейб ПОЛЬСКИ)

Gabe POLSKY

Other films
- Olya's Love, Kirill SAKHARNOV, Austria / Russia, 2014, color, DCP, 68'In Putin’s Russia, with two members of the political punk band Pussy Riot in prison and the Russian parliament adopting controversial anti-gay legislation, we follow enthusiastic twentysomething Olya in her unstinting struggle for equal rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people. She organizes exhibitions and coming-out events and demonstrates actively on the streets, often right on the front line between demonstrators, riot police and opponents. The film’s home-video style underlines the personal nature of this highly politicized issue. Olya learns to use the camera herself so she can film in the intimacy of her apartment – while her girlfriend is fitting a wall socket or they are talking with friends about having children. This private footage is interspersed with material shot by an external cameraman – often rough material from the street, just when something is happening: beatings not only during the demonstrations in front of the Duma, but also on the escalator in the metro, where women are attacked by members of an anti-gay group. By letting the camera into her life, Olya shows us what the price of standing up for your sexuality is in today's Russia.

- The Term, Aleksei PIVOVAROV, Alexander RASTORGUEV, Pavel KOSTOMAROV, Russia / Estonia, 2014, color, DCP, 83'
In May 2012, Vladimir Putin started his third term as Russian president. A growing number of citizens called for him to go and there was a feeling that a political shift was possible – even close. Convinced that history was being written, three filmmakers decided to record the sociopolitical landscape of the moment. They placed brief reportages online every day as an alternative source of information. One major condition was that the viewer had to be able to draw his own conclusions. The Term is both a result and the conclusion of this much-debated project, for which there is no tolerance in today’s Russia. While the online bulletins covered a wide variety of topics, the film focuses on the opposition leaders, who are closely followed. From the start, an infectious call for freedom and change flies off the screen. Main characters include the women of Pussy Riot, the lawyer and potential presidential candidate Alexei Navalny, the liberal activist Ilja Yashin and his wealthy girlfriend and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak, reputed to be Putin’s godchild. They steadfastly struggle against injustice – protesting against the Kremlin becomes their principal reason for living. Told in a neutral tone, their stories are interspersed with heavily-biased footage from Russian state TV.

Awards

Best documentary :

Kamchatka - The Cure for Hatred (Камчатка - лекарство от ненависти), 2014, from Yulia MIRONOVA (Юлия МИРОНОВА)