About festival

The “KinoBravo” film festival was also conceived as a platform for the discussion of topical issues related to the development of cinema industry. As a result, a comprehensive business program has been prepared, providing experts from 20 participant countries an opportunity to discuss the present and future of national mainstream cinema, the distribution and marketing of blockbusters, various aspects of film education. The experts will speak about new technologies, present projects for possible co-productions, unique filming locations and many other aspects.

Selecting films for the festival we were guided by their national box office figures, their artistic merits and international potential. As a result the rather concise festival program proved to be truly comprehensive.

12 films, made by representatives of 16 countries, will take part in the main competition. These movies showed outstanding box office results at home in 2023-2024. But most certainly we took into consideration not merely the box office returns and the number of viewers but their artistic qualities as well.

The competition will open with the Brazilian action drama “The Hijacking of Flight 375” about the real hijacking of a civilian plane in 1988. In August this year the movie won six of the national movie awards Grande Otelo 2024 including ones for best editing, sound and special effects. The Egyptian and UAE co-production “Voy! Voy! Voy!” is an amazing story of the escape of several healthy men who as part of the team of blind football players arrived in Warsaw in 2015 for a championship and vanished. After its release in Cairo this striking debut by the director Omar Hilal topped the box office and was the Egypt official submission for 2024 Oscars consideration. Evidently, the secret of the success of most competition films lies in stories based on real events. One of them is the Indian movie “Manjummel Boys” made by filmmakers from Kerala, which became the all-time box office champion among Malayalam-language films. The lead is played by the modern star of Indian cinema Soubin Shahir. The South-African “Hans Crosses the Rubicon” also became popular thanks to the participation of legendary actors. Among them is Pierre Van Pletzen who has come to the “KinoBravo” festival and will introduce the movie together with the director Corné Van Rooyen. The Chinese “Last Suspect” owes its popularity not only to the famous actress and mega-blockbuster star Zhang Xiaofei but also to the intricate detective plot. The new box office leader of the little known Ethiopian cinema “Doka” addresses the issue of regional conflicts. If we take a look at absolute national leaders, the best example will be “Fossil”, the all-time Iranian box office champion. Our country is represented by “The Wish of the Fairy Fish” which grossed almost 2.5 bln rubles in national distribution, stimulating the production of many more movies in this genre in Russia. In addition to the BRICS countries the competition program includes movies from different parts of the world – the touching “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” (Thailand), the simple-hearted comedy “Agak Laen” (Indonesia) as well as serious historical dramas “Semmelweis” (Hungary) and “Guardians of the Formula” (Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia). Last year Serbia submits “Guardians of the Formula” for an Oscar and a couple of weeks before our festival “Semmelweis” became a Hungary’s entry this year’s Oscar.

The out of competition section of “KinoBravo” includes two programs: “Festival Hits” and “Blockbusters” as well as Special Screenings. One of them will be the world premier “I’m Beginning to See the Light” (USA) which our outstanding director Konstantin Khudyakov shot entirely in Hollywood with Jack Huston, Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung and other prominent actors.

“Festival Hits” will offer the most interesting movies which participated in the world’s major film festivals, won prizes and were acclaimed by the critics. It includes “All We Imagine as Light” (France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg), the winner of the Grand Prix of the Cannes IFF 2024; “In Flames” (Pakistan, Canada) which was screened in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2023 and became the Pakistan official submission for Oscars consideration; “Norah” (Saudi Arabia) received a Special Mention in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes IFF 2024; “The Divorce” (Kazakhstan) was named the best film at the Shanghai IFF 2024 and won the Best Actress Award; “Air” (Russia) participated in the competition at the Tokyo IFF.

In addition to the high quality of the films, another important selection criterion was the absolute novelty of these movies for the Russian audience. All the foreign films in the Competition and the “Festival Hits” program will be screened in Russia for the first time at the “KinoBravo” festival.

The “Blockbusters” program offers box office hits of the past three years which became milestones for their national industries. In this case foreign films do not need additional presentation as they already had limited distribution in Russia, but the citizens and guests of Sochi will have a unique chance to see them on the big screen. Nevertheless there is still one movie which will have its Russian premiere at our festival – “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” (China). Its cast includes well-known Hong Kong actors Louis Koo and Sammo Hung and the film premiered in the out of competition program of this year’s Cannes IFF.

We are happy that from the very beginning the participants see in the “KinoBravo” festival an opportunity to introduce their movies to colleagues from other countries, to find new partners and broaden possible distribution.

I wish all the participants and guests of the festival creative success, new achievements and memorable emotions after watching the mainstream films from different countries of the world!