ALYONA BOCHAROVA (Moscow)

Executive producer of  Beat Film Festival.

In 2009–2010 Alyona Bocharova worked as an art director for Pioner cinema and then decided to launch her own project – Beat Film Festival, the first festival of documentaries about music. Its main purpose is to overthrow the established public notions of documentary as a dry-as-dust genre and familiarize the audience with its best examples, which otherwise would never have reached Russian audience.

During its three-year history the festival became a success in Moscow and the regions alike, screening the best films about music from the UK, Germany, France, Spain and other countries, the videos of famous shows, interviews with famous musicians and providing opportunities for seminars, meetings and other events additional to the festival programme.

ANNA TITOVETS (Moscow)

Director of Plums Fest

Plums Fest is an international festival supplying the audience with ‘delicacies’, scenes of audiovisual performance and multimedia projects.

The first Plums Fest was held in 2008 during the Museum Night on the territory of the Manometr factory (currently housing design centre Artplay). Plums Fest in Artplay is a platform open for experiments in multimedia and related areas. During the course of the festival one can watch audiovisual performances — the outstanding result of cooperation between musicians and video artists.

The core of the festival’s philosophy is meticulous programming: prior to becoming a part of the big every project is being closely examined by curators and tested for ‘quality’.

Anastasia Laukkanen

(Moscow)

Producer of the international ecological film festival  «EcoCup».

EcoCup is the first non-commercial festival in Russia that aims at familiarizing the audience with the best foreign ecological films. Both short and full-length ecological films are based on edutainment (education + entertainment) principle and combine elements of documentary and live action, interesting plot and good soundtrack. They deal with many subjects including biological diversity and changes in the environment, correlations between nature and humanity, life in big cities and in the wilderness.

The first EcoCup festival was held in 2010 in Moscow. Now it is held in cities and towns of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.  

All films in the programme are prize-winners of prestigious international festivals and are commented by Russian and foreign experts.

As the competition finalist Anastasia wins a special prize — a 2-months course at the Workplace creative entrepreneur school, and promotion on CITYCELEBRITY platform.

Alexey Markov (Tver)

Art director of the festival of short films and animation METERS

The International Youth Festival of Shorts and Animation METERS is the platform for screening new short films and dialogue between young artists and professionals from different countries. Age range of the contestants is 18 to 35 years.

Festival’s geography is ever-expanding: the programme includes films made in more than fifteen countries (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Germany, Denmark, the UK, Argentina, Lebanon etc.)

The jury panel, participants and guests of METERS are cinema and visual art specialists. The festival’s organisers cooperate with Russian and foreign cultural centres and film academies.

As the competition finalist Alexey has an opportunity to participate in Robert McKey’s “Genres and TV DAY” seminar  at CINEMOTION School.

Alexander Toporkov (Moscow)

Director of iMobilko, LLC.

iMobilko is the first independent Russian company that specialises in distribution of licensed e-books, films and music.

iMobilko has been building its digital library since 2008, and now it consists of approximately 40 000 items. The list of its partners includes world’s biggest record companies (Sony BMG, Universal Music, Warner Music Group), nearly all of Russian publishing houses (including Eksmo, AST, Vagrius, Mann, Ivanov & Ferber, Alpina Business Book), and Soyuzmultfilm animation studio.

As the competition finalist Alexander has an opportunity to participate in one of educational programmes of HSE’s Business Incubatorin 2012/13.

Igor Meyerson (Saint-Petersburg)

Director of «САХАР, 1 КГ»creative group.

CAXAR 1kg creative group formed in 2005 as a community of screenwriters in Saint Petersburg.

During the first three years the authors were involved in composing scripts for TV entertainment sector and directing mass and special events.

In July 2008 CAXAR 1kg creative group in collaboration with Saint Petersburg Zoo organized a social action aimed at popularization of reading among youth. Having evaluated the effect of an unusual event, members of the creative group started developing a new area of business – alternative marketing (WOW-marketing).

Now CAXAR 1kg creative group creates scripts for special events as well as film and TV industries, develops formats of new TV shows, works on alternative marketing projects.

As a competition finalist Igor Meerson will receive a 30 000 RUB grant to cover tuition cost of a seminar in Moscow Film School or in Scream School of graphic design.

Tatina Moshkova (Saint-Petersburg)

Director of theДиректор агентства RuShortFilms agency.

RuShortFilms, managed by Tatiana and Marina Moshkova, is involved in promotion of short films on Russian and International festivals. The agency gives hundreds of young directors an opportunity to get noticed and demonstrate their work on world’s best platforms. The agency’s clients are not only Russian filmmakers, but also directors from the UK, Switzerland, Israel, Italy and other countries. Within three years of its existence RuShortFilm presented its clients’ works on dozens of film festivals — METERS, Beginning, 100 Roads, Kinofest, Stop-Motion etc.

Elizaveta Nechaeva (Astrakhan)

Director of the Art-home agency of social and cultural initiatives.

History of the Art-home agency began in 2008 with a small Internet community dedicated to rare cinema. A year later Elizaveta opened a cinema club, launching the offline part of the project. In 2011 the number of its members exceeded 150, and aside from film screenings it started to hold literary events, live shows, lectures, exhibitions and concerts. As the agency’s popularity grew, Elizaveta re-branded it as an agency of social and cultural initiatives, simultaneously increasing the number and range of its projects. Now Art-home houses around 200 events per year, and Elizaveta plans to develop her agency into a centre for creative entrepreneurs and artists.