Submission Deadline Extended

Directorate of the Baikal International Film Festival named after V. Rasputin has extended the submission deadline for participation in the new edition to April 25 inclusive. The shortlist will be announced in June, and the Festival itself will be held in September. The Festival regulations and the application form are available at www.baikalkinofest.ru. You can also apply through the FilmFreeway.

As noted by festival program director Elena Utrobina, more than a hundred applications have already been submitted by directors from almost 20 countries of the world.  

The formation of the competition program goes in full swing. Two thirds of the works sent so far have been reviewed. The selection committee includes Nadezhda Zaitseva, journalist, lecturer in Journalism and Advertising at Irkutsk National Research Technical University; Elena Utrobina, deputy director of the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund, program director of the People and Environment festival; Maria Aristova, film director; Maria Kelchevskaya, film director, member of the Russian Union of Cinematographers, Tatiana Skorokhodova, actress, member of the Russian Union of Cinematographers and the Screen Actors Guild, lecturer of the Irkutsk branch of VGIK; Olga Krasnoyarova, Art History Ph.D., associate professor of Journalism and Media Economics Department at the Baikal State University of Economics and Law, member of the Russian Union of Journalists and the Union of Cinematographers..

The 21st edition will be dedicated to the 85th anniversary of Valentin Rasputin, whom the festival was named after in 2015.

The entries will be evaluated by an international jury, which will determine the winners in the following categories: Best Documentary Film, Best Feature Film, Best Popular Science Film, and Best Animated Film. There's also a special prize named Baikal that will be awarded to a film about the most acute environmental problems The Grand Prix reward is 300,000 rubles.  

The Festival was established by the Russian Union of Cinematographers and its Irkutsk Branch. The Festival is held with the support of the Russian Ministry of Culture, the Government of the Irkutsk Region, the Ministry of Culture and Archives of the Irkutsk Region. The Directorate of the Festival is the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund. The Festival President is Sergey Miroshnichenko (documentary filmmaker, producer, teacher, Honored Artist of Russia, winner of two State Prizes, professor, head of the workshop of the Department of Non-Fiction Film Directing at the Russian State University of Cinematography, academician of the National Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of Russia, member of the Russian Academy of Television TEFI).