Press Release, 22.03.2024

On 21 March, the Yabloko party hosted the opening of the film festival A Different View. The participants met with the directors of the documentaries “Cosmonauts” and “Another Space” and discussed the films and events reflected in the films.

The film festival A Different View will be held in Yabloko from 21 March to 15 April. The organisers decided to show the works offering an alternative view of the events of our present and past. The film festival will feature screenings and discussions of five films and one television play. The organising committee of the film festival includes Ivan Bolshakov, a member of the Federal Political Committee of the party, Andrei Morev, a member of the Federal Bureau, Grigory Grishin, a member of the party and documentary film director, and director Alexander Userdin.

Danila Gulin’s film “Cosmonauts” (2020), which opened the film festival on 21 March, became a chronicle of how law enforcement officers, popularly referred to as “cosmonauts” due to their outfit with helmets looking like cosmonauts’ helmets, disperse peaceful protests. Synthesising two genres at once – a documentary film and a music video – the film vividly conveys the atmosphere of those days.

The second film of the festival is “Another Space” (2022) directed by Kirill Nenashev. The protagonist of the film are two young people Masha and Ilya, were born at the turn of the century. Like their friends, they wanted to live in a free country and tried to do everything in their power for this: they organised discussion clubs, participated in protests, helped their detained friends, and talked a lot with friends and relatives, trying to change their views on what was happening. “Moscow, come out!” Masha shouts at the rally. But Moscow doesn’t come out, it is busy and in a hurry. A few years later, we all find ourselves in a different reality.

About 50 people came to participate in the discussion of the films. The participants talked to directors of the films and also discussed the protests of 2019 – February 2022 with representatives of the Yabloko party. The discussion was moderated by Andrei Morev, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Yabloko and member of the party’s Federal Bureau.

The following films will also be shown within the film festival A Different View:

– “Vera Pavlovna Is Having a Dream” (director Svetlana Prokudina, 2021), a documentary film about who and what Nikolai Chernyshevsky, a Russian writer and philosopher of the 19 century would see in his native Saratov if he were there today;

– “Sforza” (director Alexei Zherebtsov, 2016), a television play about the struggle for a Renaissance man in medieval Milan, the main fortress of which is so reminiscent of the Kremlin;

– “The Key to a Clockwork Orange” (directors Grigory Grishin and Olga Yakovleva, 2014), a documentary film about the street wars of “nationalists” and “anti-fascists” in Russia in the 2000s and the eternal phenomenon of youth aggression.

Announcements of screenings and discussions will be published on the party website later.