Films of the Moscow Film School

Moscow Film School is part of the University of Creative Industries, Universal University. It accumulates the best Russian and international experience in training specialists, builds effective educational programs, develops new directions related to content creation for cinema, TV and digital media, and launches postgraduate programs, opening up opportunities for students to successfully develop and expand their career opportunities. There is no system of workshops in MFS: the school does not aim to turn its students into a reflection of their curators. The task of the school is to give each student a professional toolkit, teach them to speak with their own voice. Moreover, the fact that MFS provides education in all the major film professions enables students to work on joint projects in conditions as close as possible to the actual production process. At the New Holland International Debut Film Festival, graduates of the Moscow Film School from different years will present five short films: Zugzwang (dir. Sergey Ramz), Six-two-eight (dir. Anna Kuznetsova), Hand (dir. Igor Marchenko), Live beautifully (dir. Yaroslav Lebedev), He drives his truck (dir. Kirill Proskurin), created in the framework of joint projects by students from all the educational programs the Moscow Film School. Sergey Ramz, Anna Kuznetsova, Sergey Proskurin and curator of the directing program at MFS, Alexei Popogrebsky, will come to present the show and answer questions from the audience. Free admission, advance registration required. Films are screened in the original language with English subtitles. 16+ Zugzwang Directed by Sergey Ramz Hand Directed by Igor Marchenko Six Two Eight Directed by Anna Kuznetsova Living it up Directed by Yaroslav Lebedev He Pulls His Truck Directed by Kirill Proskurin

Program

Alexei Popogrebsky

Film director, screenwriter

born in 1972 in Moscow into the family of a screenwriter and studied psychology at Moscow State University and the University of Wisconsin. In 1995 he teamed up with Boris Khlebnikov, a film theory student, to direct two shorts. Their joint directorial debut feature, Koktebel (2003) scored a hat-trick by screening in the official selection at Berlin, Cannes and Toronto, as well as Moscow and Karlovy Vary. Simple Things (2007), Alexei’s first solo effort as writer/director, won a number of prestigious international awards, swept all top accolades in Sochi and Angers, and was named Best Screenplay at the Russian Academy Awards. How I Ended This Summer (2010), set and shot on a polar station in the Russian Arctic, was Alexei’s third feature as writer/director. The film won two Silver Bears in Berlin and went on to win Best Film and Best Screenplay at Russian Film Academy Awards. Following his studies at the European Film Academy 3D Masterclass, Alexei directed a 3D short, Bloodrop (2011). Initially concieved as a tongue-in-cheek technical test, it went on to be released in cinemas, generated hundreds of thousands views on the Web, and won Special Awards at the 3D Image Festival in Lodz and Stereomedia in Brussels. In 2017 Alexei directed a 13-episode TV series, The Optimists, which won a Russian Academy Award. Alexei was a jury member at Sundance, London, Karlovy Vary, Pusan, Sochi and Sakhalin film festivals. Presently, Alexei Popogrebsky is the Head of the Directing Department