SHOT SET

The “Shot Set” program is a set of shots. But it is not about drinks, it is about watching shorts. The out-of-competition “Shot Set” is a panorama of films from all over the world providing a stereoscopic and diversified view (thematically, optically, in different genres and from different angles) of the development of shorts, of the topics which are relevant and interesting for the filmmakers who are mostly making their first steps. This year we have prepared 7 sets, each with its own title and mood. Here is our brief guide to the out-of-competition shorts.

“Shot Set: Kinship” – a collection of shorts about blood ties, but don’t expect a lot of family dramas. Diversity is a must. Pronouncements about kinship include gore aesthetics, plucking at Freud’s beard, hyper-realistic chronicles and – now we are talking about the Russian film “Guise” – a marvelous post-Tarantino crime movie.

The most unusual collection is “Shot Set: Against the Stream”. There is no mysticism, no fantasy. All movies are about reality. But things are not quite (or not at all) right there: reality crumbles, gets weird, baffles.

A collection of stories about the incredible and the supernatural is surely “Shot Set: The Otherworldly”. It opens with an ambitious adaptation of Kafka and includes comedies, dramas romantic trips into the Netherworld (in the Russian “Halt”) and ends with a burlesque inspired by Edgar Poe.

“Shot Set: Life is Pain” deals with traumatic experiences which fate deals us on a regular basis. Pain is appeased by cinematic beauty: we see it in the retro-fresco about the echo of the Mexican revolution, in the tragic carnival on the ruins of the Balkan war, in tempestuous Latin American dramas, in the Iranian intimate diary, intricately intertwining truth and invention, and in the thrilling Chinese melodrama.

“Shot Set: Setting a Goal” addresses the awkward age, it is about childhood and youth, about challenges which must be faced with resolution.

The theme of “Shot Set: In the Mood for Love” is self-explanatory and probably does not need comments. But be prepared for surprises (the Russian “Oskolok” is one of them).

“Shot Set: Eternity And a Day” is composed of films which are especially sensitive to the passage of time. The “day” in the title is one of those that are longer than an age. It is the most charming and melancholic collection of out-of-competition shorts. The atmosphere is Amarcord, although the bitter-sweet nostalgia for the times receding into the past does not rule out a certain drive and coexists with it pretty well like in another Russian film “Here and Now”.

Here and now – choose your cinema!

Nadezhda Korolyova

Vadim Rutkovsky