Information about Kazan International Festival

of Muslim Cinema

Kazan International Festival of Muslim Cinema have been held in the Republic of Tatarstan since 2005. The first festival was organized by the initiative of Russian Council of Muftis, Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography of Russian Federation, Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Tatarstan with the support of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan. The motto of the festival is “Through the dialogue of cultures to the culture of dialogues”.

The goals of the festival are the experience exchange between people of culture and art of Russia and the countries of the near and far abroad, the demonstration of Muslim moviemakers achievements, as well as the achievements of the representatives of other confessions, who make movies and popularize human moral and ethic cultural values, the creation of true-to-life idea of Islam and Moslem in Russian and world community.

The promoters are the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Administration of Kazan. The festival is held under the supervision of President of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Screening committee and jury consists of outstanding film-makers, movie directors from all over the world.

Every year the amount of participants and applied movies becomes higher and higher. The 1^st festival included 40 movies from 12 countries, whereas the 5^th festival included 400 movies from 67 countries.

The program of the Festival involves movies, reflected human moral and ethic values and cultural traditions and ideas of peace-keeping, tolerance and humanism irrespective of the author confession.

The festival awards are:

• 9 figurines in order of nominations;
• the special award of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan for humanism in art;
• the special award of international organization “Turksoy”;
• the special award of Russian guild of film experts and movie critics.

The festival includes the following activities:

• competitive and non-competitive film demonstrations;
• master classes with people of cinematography;
• creative meetings with festival participants;
• press conferences;
• round tables;
• the days of cinema of participating country;
• gala exhibitions of Islamic fashion.

The honorable guests of  festival were Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Adjani, Mark Dacascos, Aydan Sener, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Armand Assante, Azizolla Khamidnezade, Iya Ninidze, Nikita Mihalkov, Eldar Ryazanov. Eugene Mironov, Margarita Terekhova, Aristarkh Livanov, Aleksandr Mitta, Igor Petrenko, Alla Surikova,etc.

Traditionally the festival is broadcasted by both leading Russian and international mass media. Among Russian media sources are “RIANOVOSTI”. “ITAR-TASS”, TV-channels “Russia’, “NTV”, state television and radio broadcasting companies “New Century”, “Tatastan”, “Kazan-Star”, “The fifth channel”, newspapers ‘Rossiiskaya Gazeta”, “Izvestiya”, “Kommersant”. Among international sources are channels «Russia Today»,  «Еuronews», information agency «American Image Press», Polish newspaper “Wyborcha”, Japanese State TV-channel “NHK”, German newspaper “Altabash”, Ukrainian  newspaper “Telecity”, Azerbaijanian “First Information Agency”, Iran State TV-channel “TV-4”, Egyptian information agency “Nile”, Turkish magazine “DA”, information agency “Ihlas”, interarabic newspapers  “Al shark Al ausat” and “Al Ahram”, magazine “Al Mussavvar”, mass-media of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and others.

The winner of the first festival was movie-maker Vladimir Khotinenko. His movie “Moslem”, shooted in 1995, was the pattern of cinematographic embodiment of the main idea of the festival according to the organizers. The winners of Kazan International Festival of Muslim Cinema in different years were movies “Magician” of Oktay Mir-Kasym(Azerbaijan), “Tear of Cold” of Azizolla Khamidnizade (Iran), “Baba Aziz” of Nacer Khemir”(France - Germany- Tunisia – Hungary – Iran – Great Britain), “Mi for mother” of Rasul Mollagolipura (Iran), “Dzhodha and Akbar” of Ashutosha Govarikhera (India), “One war” of Vera Glagoleva (Russia).

The Kazan International Festival of Muslim Cinema became the serious stimulus for the development of Tatarstan cinematography. At the 1^st festival the main character of Tatarstan movie “Kuktau” of Ildar Yagafarov – Farit Bikchantaev - was awarded by the prize for the best actor. At the 3^rd festival the movie “Dilemma” of Ramil Tukhvatullin was get the People’s Choice Award. The movie “Three-legged horse” of Nouralia Zamaleeva was awarded for the best camerawork at the 4^th Kazan International Festival of Muslim Cinema. At the 5^th festival Tatarstan presented 10 movies. The main characters of the movie “Eagles” became the winners at the nomination for the best actors.