The 17th International Film Festival "WON TOGETHER" named after Vladimir Menshov starts in Volgograd.
The opening ceremony will start at 6:00 p.m.
The festival is a cultural and artistic platform, the purpose of which is to unite and professionally support documentary filmmakers who reflect in their work an up-to-date reading of the festival theme, and also contributes to the preservation of the living cinematic space of countries united by a common history. The festival is intended to promote the expansion of professional international relations, support cooperation in the field of documentary film and television and act for the sake of their development and prosperity.
The film festival program includes films for different audiences. "WON TOGETHER" draws attention to educational films and films for young people, themes and stories that can evoke high feelings and ideals, acquaint people with wonderful examples of a man’s activity, his actions and life choices. The main thematic area of the film program is the memory of the common feat of the countries participating in the Second World War on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The film festival brings to Russia topical documentaries from Canada, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Great Britain, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Ukraine, Venezuela, Poland, Belarus, Serbia.
In the national competition, the organizers have collected the best Russian documentaries of 2022, which received the main festival prizes. In the competition of film schools - films of students of cinematographic educational institutions of the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan. The social competition reveals sensitive topics that require attention, solutions and assistance from society and the state.
Together with the Russian Historical Society, “WON TOGETHER” will present 15 documentaries on historical topics.
A separate big competition is the international television competition, which brings together highly professional burning films - reports, cycles, film portraits. Works from Latvia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Russia were selected from the submitted applications.
on November 19, 20 and 21 in the Historical Park "Russia - My History" the Volgograd audience will be able to watch Eurasian Panorama - a cross section of the best documentaries of recent years, filmed in the Eurasian space. There will also be a special event - a screening of the film by British director Nicholas Rooney "The Wolf in the Moonlight" about Alexander Dugin. The film was made in 2020. Even then, the unique and ambiguous figure of the philosopher Dugin aroused the close interest of foreign countries, including employees of foreign intelligence services. The film was presented to a very limited extent in Russia and, for obvious reasons, was practically not shown abroad. British director Nicholas Rooney has an academic background, having studied Latin, Greek, philosophy, diplomacy and international relations. He worked as a diplomat in the EU Delegation to the OSCE, but became disillusioned with public service and traveled to Ukraine in 2017 with a documentary camera to investigate what was happening there on his own. He traveled all of it - from the west to the Donbass - and changed his idea of what was happening. He reflected this in the film "Pillars of Paradise" and then for the first time came to the film festival "WON TOGETHER" in Sevastopol.
Film program “Donbass. Year 2022" will be shown in Gorky Library on November 19, 20 and 22. Authors will come to present their films. Some of them are military correspondents who have found themselves in a hot spot not for the first time. And some are film students who didn't want to be left out. The authors of the film "Ghosts. Soldiers of the Forgotten War” - military correspondents Sergei Belous and Maxim Fadeev will talk about how they worked on the film and hold a master class where they will share their professional subtleties - November 22 at 11:00 a.m. The program will open on November 19 at 10:30 am with Nikita Stashkevich's film "Quartet" - a triumph at the Moscow International Film Festival - about a Donetsk music school teacher and her students, whom the violin helps to survive the destructive atmosphere around.
Volgograd State University (VolGU) will become the main venue for the film festival. VolSU will host screenings of the main competitions of the film festival, the jury will work, Russian and foreign directors will present their films to the audience. The University, together with the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Volgograd branch of the OPRF, will organize and conduct a business international program at the Center for Public Diplomacy of the University: on November 19 at 12:00, a round table "Historical and cultural heritage and cinematography" will be held (moderators: Chairman of the Commission for the harmonization of interethnic and interreligious relations of the OPRF Vladimir Zorin and Deputy Chairman of the Commission for the Expertise of Socially Significant Draft Laws and Other Legal Initiatives Svetlana Kazachenok). Chairman of the Board of the Russian Historical Society Konstantin Mogilevsky and the Senator of the Russian Federation from the executive power of Sevastopol Ekaterina Altabaeva will attend the round table.
On November 20, a round table “Cinema in search of historical truth. History and Memory” will be held by Irina Pavlova, a well-known film critic, professor at the Faculty of Film and Television at Barclay-University (San Francisco, USA), artistic director of the Russian programs of the Moscow International Film Festival. The great master, film critic, film historian Valery Fomin will also speak.
The Dean of the Higher School of Television of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Vitaly Tretyakov, Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly Andrey Belyaninov, General Director of the publishing house "News’ World" Andrey Avdonin will take part in the festival events at VolSU.
The screenings at VolSU will be open to viewers November 19 - 22 by prior registration.
Volgograd State Technical University is the second competition platform. It will host film screenings of the film school competition, social competition and "History in the frame". Creative meetings with Russian filmmakers will be held in the cultural space "Boiling Point".
The thematic diversity of the festival films made it possible to draw up relevant programs for many universities in the Volgograd region. Film screenings will be held at the Medical and Agrarian Universities, at the VGIIK Institute of Art and Culture, the program of Chinese film premieres will be shown at the Confucius Institute of the Volgograd Social and Pedagogical University.
A cultural program for guests and participants of the film festival will be held by the Volgograd Planetarium.
The Cosmos Hotel, the main partner of the film festival, will host film premieres on November 19 - 22. On November 20, the famous film director Yusup Razykov will present to the audience his new film "The French Master" with Alexei Guskov and Anna Chipovskaya in the lead roles.
On November 21, Oleg Shtrom will present to the audience a feature film "From the sky and into battle." Starring Mikhail Zhigalov.
The opening ceremony will be held at the Volgograd State Technical University on November 19 at 18:00.
The winners will be announced at the Battle of Stalingrad Panorama Museum on November 22.
The film festival “WON TOGETHER” is the largest documentary film show in Russia. Born in the Crimea in 2005 at the initiative of the heroes of the Soviet Union, “WON TOGETHER” since 2014 began to be held under the jurisdiction of Russia and, oddly enough, only increased international participation. Filmmakers from North and Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, the CIS countries, the Middle East and China, defending the positions of historical justice in their work, came to Crimea every year to present new works.
The festival's president, People's Artist of Russia, Oscar winner Vladimir Menshov, known for his active citizenship, made every effort to ensure that international participation steadily grew. Under his leadership, a competition of film schools appeared at the show, presenting the best documentary films made by students of cinematographic educational institutions around the world.
In 2022, a decision was made to hold a film festival in the city of Volgograd to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. The decision to hold the film festival in Volgograd was supported by the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Southern Federal District, the Russian Association of Heroes and the Russian Union of Veterans.
The film festival is held with the support of the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives and the Russian Historical Society.
The organizers are the International Union of Non-Governmental Organizations "Eurasian Peoples' Assembly" together with the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio.
See the film festival website for a detailed program and schedule of screenings.