A movie premiere about film artists from St Petersburg University held at the House of Cinema
The House of Cinema has hosted a demonstration of the first in a series of film portraits of professors from the Department of Film and TV Artist Skills at St Petersburg University. The premiere also featured an exhibition dedicated to the masters.
For the first time, films whose main characters were film artists, lecturers of St Petersburg University, were presented on the big screen. ’This is an amazing project,’ admitted Mariia Shemetova, Associate Professor and Acting Head of the Department of Film and TV Artist Skills at St Petersburg University. ’Our professors spoke frankly and sincerely about their views on art, how they communicate with students and what they think and experience.’
Olga Tulsanova, Deputy Senior Vice-Rector for Event Management and Partner Relations of St Petersburg University, stressed that the series launched the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg University and expressed her hope that the collection of portrait sketches would be successfully completed by the jubilee celebrations.
The films were created as part of the internships at the University clinics by students who collaborated with the St Petersburg University Media Centre.
The University initiated project-based education, in which it has become possible to create such work. Students get a feel for their profession by completing such assignments, and this helps them a lot in the future.
Anatoly Puyu, Professor, Director of the Graduate School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The exhibition will run until the end of March 2022.
On the day of the premiere, the House of Cinema opened an exhibition of paintings and drawings, as well as sketches for films, which were created with the participation of the University students. The authors of the works include: Associate Professors Larisa Konnikova, Aleksandr Zagoskin, Latif Kazbekov, Evgenii Sverdlov and Ekaterina Shapkaits; Assistant Professors Petr Tatarnikov, Natalia Belova, Andrei Vetrogonskii, Olga Gerr and Leonid Karpov; and lecturers Dmitrii Flegontov and Anastasiia Potashkina.
While opening the exhibition, Sergei Snezhkin, film director and chairman of the St Petersburg organisation of the Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, expressed confidence that, despite all difficulties, Russian cinema art ’will survive the age of polyethylene and melt it into silver’ (a quote from Andrei Voznesensky).
The event also honoured the recently deceased artists Inessa Snezhkina, Petr Konnikov and Vladimir Svetozarov, as well as the director of the Media Centre, Olga Podolskaia, who supervised the production of the film. The latter’s colleague, filmmaker Anastasiia Minvaleeva, confessed that ’the art studio is the space where people feel most comfortable in the world’.