Night of the Russian Documentary

On the eve of IDFA 2016, Russian film director Marina Razbezhkina, curators Kristina Daurova and Ksenia Gapchenko and Dutch film director Jessica Gorter discuss the current state of documentary filmmaking in Russia. After the debate two recent and remarkable documentaries are screened that shed a different light on Russia.

Our guests are:
Marina Razbezhkina, director, writer and producer. For the past seven years, Razbezhkina has been head of the Moscow School of Documentary Film and Documentary Theatre, which she co-founded with Mikhail Ugarov.
Ksenia Gapchenko, film critic and programmer. She studied at the Moscow School of Documentary Film and Documentary Theatre and worked as programming director for the Documentary Film Centre in Moscow. Currently Ksenia works as a festival advisor on Russian documentary film from the Netherlands.
Kristina Daurova, independent filmmaker and artist. She also works as a programmer and film critic, collaborating with various cultural institutions. Kristina was previously active as art-director of SiberiaDOC,. Since autumn 2015, she has been a participant of the “Master of Film” programme at the Netherlands Film Academy.
Jessica Gorter, director and producer. She has worked as an independent filmmaker and directed, produced and shot several documentaries on post-soviet Russia. In 2011 her second feature length documentary ‘900 Days’ premiered, about the siege of Leningrad during World War II.

After the debate, two films will be screened:

Not My Job (2015 – 70 minutes), by Denis Shabaev
Farrukh is a migrant worker. Together with his father, mother, and brothers he lives in Moscow and takes every job that can bring him some money. But it wasn’t the reason he left Tadjikistan, his young wife and small kids. Farrukh wants to become an actor, a very famous actor. Director Denis Shabaev has created a picture of Russia that we are not accustomed to seeing: as a destination for individual longing and a magnet for so many souls from the former Soviet republics.

Blood (2013 – 59 minutes), by Alina Rudnitskaya
This vivid black-and-white film captures the daily goings-on at a Russian blood bank. Each day, a small, closely-knit team packs a van full of the supplies they will need to do their job in the most remote corners of the countryside. In most western countries, donating blood is an ethical deed that people do without financial compensation, but in Blood, a few touching scenes are enough to render the economic necessity palpable.

Practical information
Date: Tuesday 15 November 2016
Location: De Balie, Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10 in Amsterdam
Time: 19.45 - 23.30
Buy your tickets (à 10/8,50 euros) online

The Night of Russian documentary is part of a series of four Russia Reports that are jointly organised by De Balie and Dutch Culture in the period October 2016-January 2017.