The Kinotavr Open Film Festival is considered one of the main film events in Russia. Every year at the very beginning of summer for eight days Sochi receives the best figures in Russian cinema. In 2012, the Kinotavr was held for the 23rd time.
The main film screening in Russia - the Kinotavr Open Film Festival - had its predecessor, the Unbroken Film Festival, which took place in 1990 in Podolsk with the participation of the independent Moscow Region company. The festival was created to help Russian cinema, whose funding during the transitional period of perestroika significantly decreased. But already in 1991, it was decided to hold a new festival in the resort city of Sochi.
The Kinotavr national film festival was headed by producer Mark Rudinstein, and the famous actor Oleg Yankovsky was president for 11 years (from 1993 to 2004). In 2005, they were replaced by the president of STS Media Alexander Rodnyansky and the CEO of Profit Igor Tolstunov.
With the advent of the new leadership, the format of the festival has changed. To increase the budget, they significantly expanded the business part of the cinema and eliminated the international program, focusing on domestic cinema.
In 2012, 14 full-length feature films and one documentary participated in the Kinotavra competition program, and short films were screened as part of the festival.
The jury consisting of seven people traditionally evaluated the paintings of the main competition. Usually the judges included representatives of various film professions. In 2012, only filmmakers were invited to the jury as an experiment. The judicial staff was headed by Vladimir Khotinenko.
The short film competition was judged by a jury of three people.
The 23rd film festival in Sochi opened with the screening of the experimental film “Until Night Separates” Boris Khlebnikov. This is the first film in the history of Russian cinema, shot on the principle of crowdsourcing, when unprofessional actors took part in the filming for a very symbolic payment, or even completely free. The film's script was based on the project of the Big City magazine, during which journalists for two weeks listened and recorded conversations of visitors to the Pushkin restaurant. These dialogues became the basis of the script.
The Kinotavr 2012 contest included films by Avdotya Smirnova “Kokoko”, Vasily Sigarev “Live”, Alexey Mizgirev “Convoy”, “I Don't Love You” by Alexander Rastorguev and Pavel Kostomarov, “Atonement” by Alexander Proshkin and others.
Two competitive films have already managed to participate in major international film festivals. "Convoy" A. Mizgireva was in the program "Panorama" of the IFF in Berlin, and "Live" V. Sigareva became a participant in the Rotterdam festival.
The competent jury recognized the best film as Pavel Ruminov’s tape “I Will Be Near” about a terminally ill woman who, hiding this, is looking for a foster family for her six-year-old son.
Among the short films, the absurdist tape "Feet - Atavism" by Mikhail Mestetsky won. Taisiya Igumentseva’s work “Road to
."on the" Kinotavr "was left without prizes.
