From October 10 to 16, Vladivostok will host the 18th Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries.
The festival will open with screenings of two dramas – DOCTOR LIZA, directed by Oksana Karas and ESAU directed by Pavel Lungin.
The extensive festival program consists of eighteen sections, featuring the most important films of the current season.
For the first time at the festival, the main jury will be composed of Russian filmmakers. They will evaluate the international competition program of films created by directors from Russia, China, Japan, Chile, Korea, the USA, Vietnam and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
Russia is represented in the competition by four films: features SCARECROW by Dmitry Davydov and THE WHALER Boy by Philipp Yuryev, short films LEAVE OF ABSENCE by Anton Sazonov and NAKED by Kirill Khachaturov.
The Panorama section will feature new films by leading world directors – Philippe Garrel, Hong Sang-Soo, Cristi Puiu, Dmitry Mamuliya, Radu Jude, Tsai Ming-Liang and others.
In honor of the Year of Memory and Glory in Russia, the festival curators invite the audiences to watch films about the war: the documentary ORDINARY FASCISM by Mikhail Romm and the military-historical drama A SIEGE DIARY by Andrey Zaytsev.
The main screenings will take place at OKEAN IMAX Movie Theater, some of them at USSURI Movie Theater. At OKEAN IMAX Movie Theater there will be meet-the artist and Q&A sessions with filmmakers, directors and actors, as well as workshops and lectures from leading filmmakers, film critics and film experts. The Moscow Film School will become the partner of the educational program of the 18th Pacific Meridian. The curators and teachers of the Moscow Film School will hold a workshop on acting and will talk about the nature of the profession of production designer and teach their audience how to find a living element of everyday life while shooting documentary films.