HSE University Hosts ‘Pint-Sized’ Film Festival
On August 21, HSE University’s Cultural Centre hosted the opening of the first ‘Pint-Sized’ student film festival. Over the next week, guests will be able to attend lectures from teachers of the HSE Film Institute and watch works by the festival participants. On August 27, at the closing ceremony, the winners of the Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Directing, and Best Cinematography categories will be announced.
‘Pint-Sized’ is a student film festival dedicated to helping young filmmakers tell their life story. Its main task is to start a discussion around the individual and complex experience of growing up.
The idea of the festival originated in the Taylor Swift Fan Club at HSE University, shared Liza Kryuchkova, one of the organisers of the film festival. ‘The creator of the idea is Nastya Kornienko,’ explains Liza. ‘Having worked at the Moscow International Film Festival, she realised that there were not enough platforms for the development of cinema. We decided to emphasise exactly that: only students who have nowhere else to present their films can take part. We were looking for partners for the project and the HSE Film Institute responded.’ Other partners include VK, the Illusion cinema, and the Kino Caste online film school.
Tatyana Chernetskaya, teacher of the ‘Introduction to Dramaturgy’ course at the Film Institute, congratulated the students on the opening of the festival. ‘We are happy to see so many bright-eyed and aspiring writers, directors, and cinematographers,’ she said.
Festival works will be shown at four different venues: ClubClub, Rovesnik, Surf Coffee, and Cosmic Latte. A detailed schedule can be found here (in Russian).
The lecture programme will feature talks on how light and colour affect cinema, which genres are in the highest demand at the moment, and how to pitch ideas properly. Anna Agamiryan, psychologist, narrative practitioner and SFBT therapist, will talk about how to choose a sphere for self-realisation and not be afraid to try new things. Anyone interested can attend the lectures for free, provided they register in advance.
Jury members:
Egor Moskvitin, film critic, lecturer at the Moscow Film School
Anna Ryzhikova, executive producer of Cheburashka, Vampires of Midland, An Ordinary Woman, Two Hills, executive producer at the Yellow, Black & White production company
Kamill Akhmetov, journalist, writer, screenwriter, editor, visiting lecturer at HSE University
Dmitry Kotov, Deputy Director and Academic Programme Manager at the HSE Film Institute, screenwriter, producer, author of books about cinema
Maria Kordyukova, film critic, art director of Cinemaholics, creator of a Telegram channel about cinema, illustrator, designer
The HSE News Service spoke to visitors of the festival about why they were interested in the event.
‘I am proud of the participants: they were able to implement the project, assemble a high-profile jury, and partner with serious venues,’ says Olga Zhukalina. ‘This festival provides an opportunity to show the problems that concern students now. I want to get acquainted with all the competing films; I think they are very interesting.’
‘I want to see the work of novice directors,’ Vera Zaitseva explained. ‘These are new names that will be developing the film industry.’
Egor Kozyukov is a first-year student of Intercultural Communications at Moscow State Pedagogical University. ‘I am a fan of Taylor Swift. I found a group on VK created by HSE University students and learned about the film festival there. Recently, we also filmed a video for one of her songs—I was one of the actors in this project. We came up with a story about the kinds of relationships women and men can have,’ said Egor. ‘In the future, I would like to make films or videos myself; when I listen to music, I always imagine some scenes, and I think I could do it.’
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