Last week in Moscow ended on the 11th Beat Film Festival. Conceived when-that as the festival of films about music, he quickly turned the “narrow measures” and in the current year and is presented a new format. Co-founder of the Beat Film Festival Kirill Sorokin has told “to the Spark” about how the documentary survives in new conditions.Interviewed by Maria ЛащеваBeat Film Festival focuses, as always, on topical and relevant: at this time, the programme films about ecology, feminism, globalization, bodypositive, Greta Thunberg and, of course, about the coronavirus. In the national program of the Beat Film Festival young filmmakers presented 9 films about Russia in the modern world. The film “the Project “Spring”” (the “national contest”), presented 14 documentary history on the national characteristics of self-isolation. Their heroes are the Moscow promoter Andrew Algorithmic, izolirovannye during the epidemic in their own club Powerhouse; gallery Tbilisi Giorgi Rodionov and quarantine podcast about dreams; the Director, who went to a remote village; the most famous photographer shooting an empty Moscow and other young optimists, who have found ways to live and work in a changed world and quarantine of loneliness.Co-founder of the Beat Film Festival Kirill Sorokin admitted that the main miracle of this year is that it took place at all. This time the festival was held in a “hybrid format” — and this is the first case in Russia when the event was able to hold simultaneously both online and offline.— In the beginning of the year, in February, when we were returning from the Berlin film festival, says Kirill Sorokin, if I someone said that our festival will be held including online and the entire program can be seen on the TV screen, computer, projector, and this will be taken for granted, it is simply impossible to believe. However, a new norm was quickly established during the quarantine, and now it is in order. Absolutely we can say that next year, no matter how the situation developed to the pandemic, the festival will be held both offline and online. It primarily provides a new platform of communication with the audience, creates the opportunity to see more movies not to miss anything. It is definitely something that the quarantine has brought to life the festival, and that’ll stay with him. I fail to mention, how much time, effort and nerves in the process of preparation were spent by the team, which existed in a suspended state in the conditions of total uncertainty. Nobody could conceive how it will turn out. But in the past — in the end we all managed to overcome.— Still, some losses were? What had to give?— Of the negative effects of isolation — the fact that this year the festival is only half their usual y��their sites. On “Arrow” has not held a public event. Multimedia Art Museum is closed, there are still a number of areas. Everywhere there are restrictions on social distance. This is the new reality faced in this year’s festival. We came out of it the best way possible: just 1 Aug opened cinema, and the festival has become a flagship in this process, being more interesting for the audience rolling films.— In the national program of the festival presents film about isolation, 14 stories of young people, their experience of the pandemic. It is a tribute to time or do the all-sufficient work of art?— The film is about the isolation “Project “Spring”” is certainly a product of time, the fixation of a moment. It was a lot of questions — looking at these characters, you might think that all the isolation was superdense, optimistic… it is Clear that it is not. This film has some interesting history, there are checkpoints. But if you’re making a film about isolation and want the movie wasn’t just a product of time, but it could be back need the author’s view.— Agree, after all we have in this country including documentary film festivals in the… what is the difference Beat Film Festival from others on what you’re trying to focus?— Our festival aspires to be the largest documentary film festival in Russia, but we don’t want to go to foreign territories that are already occupied by others. Focus on what is interesting for young people. In this sense, the optics of other similar festivals, such as “Artdocfest”, is fundamentally different as its audience. Our festival communicates with young audiences, at the level of those films that we select, at the level of sites. In short, an appeal to the young is a key priority.— It is believed that the audience is not very interested in documentary films, are not willing to pay money for it. How do you work?— Still, over the last ten years there has been some evolution in the perception of documentary film — not only in Russia but throughout the world. Documentary film becomes a big-budget genre abroad it is invested today at the stage of production — with the desire and expectation to recoup costs.
When the documentary goes to rent, it usually goes to the festival tour, bought Netflix or even somehow “out into the world.” This trend is linked primarily with the advent of such movies as “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012, in the Russian hire “In search of Sugar Man” Director Malik Bendjelloul) and “Free Solo” (2018, Directors Elizabeth Tea Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin). This “event films”, which were included in textbooks of history of modern cinema as works that change the industry. Both received the “Oscar”. This year released a documentary Serial “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan and the Chicago bulls, and in those days, when there was a new series, this was the most popular content platform Netflix, even in Russia. He was more popular than all the art series put together. This shows that a lot depends on how documentary film looks, what language it speaks with the audience. If it is a modern, the great divide between documentary and fiction as a form of entertainment not.Photo: Irina Bujor, a merchant— But the movies is a fantasy world where you can escape from the pressing problems. And what is the motivation of people to go to the documentary?— People go to documentaries to learn some history, come into contact with something that close to them, I wonder. As people come to the universe of marvel movies, because they know all the heroes, someone has read the original comic books, seen the previous series, this is some fan base. And when people come, for example, a film about Banksy, it is a little different from when people come to a movie with a famous actor.— What today is Russia documentary films from the world?— The main difference between the world of documentary from the domestic level of production, the amount of funds that is spent per year on production of documentary cinema. This is a topic for another discussion — about the lack of industry, distribution channels and much more. We, of course, talking about the art by the name “documentary” and not about the production of one-minute commercials for TV. Here we have different forms. There is a school of Marina Razbezhkina — the world-famous school of documentary filmmakers that I know from Amsterdam to Colombia. These films are made macrobudgetary very modest means, but it does not detract from their artistic merit, the strength of the stories that they tell. Is Viktor Kosakovsky, our compatriot, who last year released film “Aquarelle”, the meticulously calibrated each frame, innovative documentary, made with care by Christopher Nolan, which would be the envy of many American documentary filmmakers.
