The presentation of Young European Film Festival «VOICES», which will be held in Vologda from 5th to 10th of July, was made in a Russian pavilion of the Festival de Cannes

The presentation of Young European Film Festival “VOICES”, which will be held in Vologda from 5th to 10th of July, was made in a Russian pavilion of the Festival de Cannes.

The presentation was given by general producer Pavel Morozov, programming director of the Festival Igor Guskov, art-director of the Festival Corinna Daniela, as well as the French producers Nadezhda Turintsev and Matio Bonpuen.

During the presentation the main differences of the “VOICES” Festival were revealed. According to those who took the floor this is the only European film festival in Russia combining a contest of the debut and the second films of the European directors and a more than 70 films non-competitive program. Another distinguishing feature of the Festival is 30 000 euros prize divided between the director of the film winner and the company distributing it in Russia.

In 2011 the “VOICES” Festival is held within the framework of the Italian year in Russia, that is why the Italian films will be in focus. The number of the guests include: Claudia Cardinale – the muse of the “VOICES – 2011”, Paolo Taviani, Andrea Guerra.

The names of some other films included into the program of the future Festival were also revealed in the Cannes, they are Polish film Mother Theresa of Cats ( director Pawel Sala), Italian film Quiet life ( director Claudio Cupellini), French film Free Hands ( director Brigitte Sy).

Within the framework of 2011 Festival the following programs will be presented:
“Roman Holiday”, the best Italian films over the last period of years,
“European Express”, the best European films for the last year,
“Children playground”, films for the whole family,
“Films in the Kremlin”, shown in the historical center of Vologda under the open sky,
“Our new films”, the best Russian films for the last year.

As well as the special programs:
Taste of “Sweet Life”
Forbidden Malaparte
Night of film-lovers and ohers.

Programming director of the Festival Igor Guskov noted that the choice of this year competing films conveys a general subject which has a lot in common with the Cannes Festival theme: family relationships, parents-children relations”.

This subject was specified last September and some of the programs and films of the “VOICES-2011” Festival expands upon it and the number of guests include representatives of both Russian and foreign onscreen families.

The “VOICES-2011” Festival jury members were also announced:
The president of the jury is Hugh Hudson, an English film director
The members of the jury are:
- Stefan Kitanov, the Sofia International Film Festival president,
- Sergei Loznitsa, Ukrainian film director,
- Goran Paskaljevic, Serbian film director,
- Ksenia Rappoport, Russian actress,
- Isabella Ragonese, Italian actress.

The “VOICES” Festival is a place to meet professionals: producers, distributers, directors. Within the framework of the Festival in Vologda they will hold a roundtable discussion of the prospects of Russian and European Co-production and meet Italian and Russian producers to present the projects of cooperation between two countries. They will be presented by Vera Glagoleva, Natalia Ivanova, PaoloTaviani, Maria Spina and others.

In 2011 more workshops are going to be launched as well as meetings with professionals of film industry. Some of them are workshops by Kshishtof Zanussi, Sandy Liberson, Andrea Guerra, meetings with film directors and actors , film concerts and exhibitions. Nadezhda Turintsev who visited the Festival in 2010 noted that this is a good opportunity and beautiful place to meet colleagues from all the Europe and Russia and to see new Russian films.

Since Russian has been accepted into EURIMAGE program and signed the agreement of co-production with Italy, it has become an important stage of Russia integrating into European film industry.
Suffice it to say that “VOICES” Festival is a co-project of Vologda region government, Vologda city authorities and French company ID-réel.

The general sponsor of the Festivalis is JSC “Severstal”.