Eighteen new Russian films will premiere at the 12th Russian Resurrection Film Festival.
The films will play at venues in Australia and New Zealand during October and November.
International guests at the festival include director, Sergei Mokritsky, whose 2015 war epic Battle for Sevastopol, will open the festival in Canberra, Brisbane and Auckland.
Battle of Sevastopol tells the true story of a young Soviet woman who joins the Red Army in 1941 to fight the Nazi invasion.
Lyudmila builds a reputation as one of the deadliest Soviet snipers. When tragedy hits, she is pulled out of combat to join a diplomatic delegation to the USA, where she develops an unlikely friendship.
Another war epic based on a true story, Battalion, will open the festival in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. A huge box office hit in Russia, this is the story of the First Russian Women’s Battalion, led by the peasant Maria Bochkareva. It is set in the spring of 1917 at the height of the First World War. The battalion was formed with the idea that women warriors would shame timid soldiers into resuming their combat duties.
Battalion is directed by Dmitriy Meskhiev, whose 2004 film, Our Own, is also part of this year’s festival retrospective of six World War II classics.
Russian Resurrection Film Festival director, Nicholas Maksymow, said the lineup of films this year was particularly strong and would create a deeper understanding of Russia.
“Through a varied and uncompromising presentation of Russian culture, we can provide audiences with the diversity of voices and ideas that are present in Russian cinema and society,” he said. “Russian cinema is evolving and developing every day.”
As part of the festival, there will be an exhibition by Russian photographer Vladimir Maksimov, who worked on the 2014 film Territory, set in Russia’s far north – where the tundra meets the Arctic. Maksimov will be visiting Australia with his exhibition of landscapes that delves behind the scenes of the making of the film.
The Russian Resurrection Film Festival receives the support of the Russian Ministry of Culture, Russkiy Mir Foundation, Event Cinemas, ACMI and Rialto Cinemas.