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Russian Film Week opens in New York

All screenings will be accompanied by Q&A sessions, topical discussions, master-classes at the US universities, and other special events

NEW YORK, October 9 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Film Week in New York is opening Wednesday. The festival that dates back to 2000 will show ten Russian films made in the last two years.

The Week will open with the first screening of Alexander Veledinsky’s film titled The Geographer Drank His Globe Away, the 2013 Kinotavr winner. The film tells the story of a young biologist, Viktor Sluzhkin (Konstantin Khabensky) who accepts the position of a geography teacher in an ordinary provincial school to make ends meet. Despite all changes of fortune, he is still able to feel and to fall in love.

“The film was not an accidental choice for the opening. I think this film is the year’s scoop — the sole Russian film this season that has spontaneously united fans of independent psychological cinema and new popular cinema, conservatively minded old-timers still nostalgic about the USSR and researchers of what Russia is today. This is a drama, a comedy, a Bildungsfilm, a love story and a requiem for the lost generation alike. It is a film for everybody and, to some extent, about everybody,” said the Week’s Program Director, film critic Anton Dolin.

Interestingly, the festival will open in the largest and most beautiful single screen movie theater in NYC, Ziegfeld Theater, not a typical one for the US. Its only seats 1,160, while most NYC movie theaters have no more than 300 seats. The organizers of foreign film festivals usually opt for the latter, as they do not hold out much hope subtitled films can attract sufficient audience. Screenings will also take place at several other venues, including SVA Theatre and Brighton Beach Millenium Theatre.

The first screening of Zhora Kryzhovnikov’s adventure comedy Gorko! will take place on October 10. The film will be presented by one of its producers, Timur Bekmambetov.

“I’m happy NYC will be the first to see our film! It'll make them laugh, weep and feel nostalgic,” said Sergey Svetlakov, one of the leading actors.

The festival will close on October 13 with the showing of Nikolay Lebedev’s Legend No. 17, a film about the Soviet ice hockey star Valeri Kharlamov, who shot to fame as N. 17 during the Summit Series of September 1972 in Montreal.

All screenings will be accompanied by Q&A sessions, topical discussions, master-classes at the US universities, and other special events aimed at extending co-operation between Russian and US filmmakers.

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