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“It takes a special kind of mindset to save the planet”: PSU Dean and Expert Gets Involved into International Film Fest

Andrey Zaitsev, Chairman of Perm branch of the Russian Geographical Society, Dean of the Faculty of Geography, PSU, took part in the II International Film Festival “Shape of Life”.

The “Shape Of Life” International Film Festival is a professional event on environment, dedicated to the preservation of the environment and all forms of life on Earth. The Festival brings together directors regarding global natural processes and show that each person can help achieve ecological balance.

The competition program of the Film Festival featured nine Russian premieres and films from all over the world. The official closing ceremony announcing the results of the competition took place in Perm, Russia on 21 August. The Best Director award went to the “Freedom Squared” film, showing a young space medicine scientist who travels to the Antarctic station “Vostok”, the coldest point on the planet, to study human vision in extreme conditions. The nomination for the Best Cinematography was given to the “Kinneret” drama on wildlife. The winner of Best Scenario became a film on a village in Herzegovina, where life stopped twice, and revived again “The Prebilovites, Where Stones Have Scars”.

“The issues of environmental protection and preservation of life on the planet can only be resolved with our efforts united. More than hundred students in environmental and climate security graduate the Faculty of Geography at Perm State University, annually. Yet, it is not enough. To keep our planet in the same state as today, least, a joint action is needed. The important mission that documentary films follow is forming a special, green-friendly type of thinking that helps resolving our global tasks,”

says Andrey Zaitsev, Dean of the Faculty of Geography, PSU.

The Faculty of Geography at PSU is known among the leading national and international centers of geosciences. The Faculty prepares specialists in physical, economic and social geography, cartography and geo-informatics, tourism and socio-cultural service, hydrometeorology and environmental management. Among the Faculty partners are universities and research centers of UK, Germany, USA, Italy, Poland, Finland, Kazakhstan.

The Faculty of Geography was one of the first to introduce alternative sources of energy – the solar-wind power plant and sun helioplant into the campus life, as well as an autonomous ecohouse on the site of the Preduralye Forest Reserve, Urals, Russia. The Faculty staff use modern equipment, among which are the mobile lab vehicle equipped for environmental diagnostics and the flying lab – unmanned air drone for tracking environmental changes.

The Faculty students do internship courses all around Russia from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka – including large governmental companies, industrial enterprises, reserves and national parks, academic and educational institutions, government bodies. The Student Ecological Board carries out a range of environmental events on campus and within the city site, promoting ecological-wise attitude.

PSU Scholars Contribute to Film on Pasternak, Participate International Contest

15 years ago, PSU scholars Vladimir Abashev, Elena Vlasova, Ivan Pechishchev and Anastasia Firsova took part in the creation of the Pasternak’s House Museum in the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva – a local Ural place associated with a famous Russian poet and author of the “Doctor Zhivago” novel, who lived here in 1916.

Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) is known as a man of letters, and a Nobel-prize winner, which lead to his friction with the Soviet government, yet a great popularity around the world.  The Museum in Vsevolodo-Vilva is known for its natural folk scenery, typical of the Northern Urals, sung in Pasternak’s poetry.

In 2021, the film “Pasternak’s Oberland” was shot with a contribution by Perm State University philologists, allowing to experience the Museum’s vibe – the youngest and most remote branch of the Perm Museum of Local Lore, which attracts up to 3000 visitors annually by its creative and inclusive activity.

The film was sent to a prestigious competition of MUSEUMS IN SHORT 2021, an international contest in short videos realized by/for/with museums, in the category “Storytelling: Short Narratives in Video Format”. The audience is welcome to see the film and vote here.

Pictures’ source:
Pasternak’s House Museum in Vsevolodo-Vilva.
Museums in Short Film Festival.

Film by PSU Alumnus Nominated for Oscar

Lyubov Mulmenko, a graduate of the Faculty of Philology, Perm State University (PSU) is listed among the co-authors of the script for the film “Compartment No. 6 “, nominated for an Oscar prize (https://abc.com/shows/oscars), in a Category “Best Movie in a Foreign Language”, representing Finland.

“Compartment No. 6” (Finnish: “Hytti nro 6”) is a 2021 internationally co-produced drama, which shows a story of a Finnish student forming an unlikely friendship with a gruff Russian miner, on a train from Moscow to Murmansk. Based on a novel by Rosa Liksom, the film was co-written and directed by Juho Kuosmanen, and united a crew from Finland, Germany, Estonia and Russia. Lyubov Mulmenko was invited to work on dialogues in Russian, as a script had been originally written in English.

The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide, since 1929. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy’s voting membership.

Earlier, “Compartment No. 6” got the Palme d’Or Grand Prix at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.  Founded in 1946 in Cannes, France, it is one of the “Big Three” major European film festivals, and an event for the whole global cinema industry.

In 2021, the Cannes Festival saw another film by Lyubov Mulmenko, also performing as a co-screen writer (lead by Kira Kovalenko and a co-director Anton Yarush) – “Unclenching the Fists”, a family drama growing in a mining town in North Ossetia – a story of a young woman struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she loves as much as she rejects. “Unclenching Fists” won the Grand Prix of the Uncleaning View author’s film competition at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

The American Variety  Weekly has included Lyubov Mulmenko in the list of 12 Rising Russian Talents Ready for the Global Stage.

From a young age, Lyubov Mulmenko knew she would be a writer: “I just adored inventing the characters and the worlds they live in”. Gradually, she tried “to learn even more in the process.” At Perm State University, Lyubov studied journalism, and further art journalism at the Pro Arte Institute in St. Petersburg. For several years then, she worked in media, including the Sol Internet Newspaper, the Companion Magazine, the New Companion Newspaper, and wrote as a columnist for the https://Lenta.ru.

In 2014, Mulmenko made her screenwriting debut with a trio of drama films that screened in festivals including Rotterdam, San Sebastian and Karlovy Vary. Recently, Lyubov Mulmenko presented her directorial debut, “The Danube”, in the main competition of the Kinotavr Film Festival. “All I hope is to continue with storytelling,” she says, “but I’d like to write less for others and make more films myself.”

“Compartment No. 6” Poster.

“Compartment No. 6” Frame: – Official Trailer.

Lyubov Mulmenko Picture Source and “The Danube” poster: @lyubov.mulmenko on Facebook

“Compartment No. 6” at the Cannes Festival.

PSU to Support International Film Festival

On 616 September, Perm State University is hosting the “VUZ-Flahertiana” contest for student-based cinema clubs, as a support for the Flahertiana International Documentary Film Festival.

The VUZ-Flahertiana is a friendly way to talk about how we feel, in relation to non-fiction, true-to-life and hard-to-predict stories, which documentaries are. Our own response might be a valuable part of such a screening. According to the Contest Committee, “the goal of the competition is to promote the dialogue culture, tolerance, civic engagement and motivation in youth environment.”

Each University faculty was given the opportunity to choose its own film, referring to the unique collection by the Flahertiana International Film Festival, collected over the years of existence. Flahertiana’s competitive selection means we have access to the cream of the cream contestant productions within the documentary field.

The University develops in a dialogue with the local community, and itself,” says Ksenia Punina, Head of the Public Relations Department, PSU. “Here this dialogue is being given technical and intellectual support, as well as the interdisciplinary and unifying approach, hence the choice of films.

Instead of affiliation with a particular field of science, in 2021, the most popular topic is connected to personal progress and self-search, as well as the role that media in that phenomenon. It can be assumed that this choice was triggered by the threat to the human species in the face of the pandemic and the withdrawal of online education.

“We hope that each show will reveal the individuality character of the faculty, encouraging students and teachers to speak out, contributing to the interactive University climate. We are looking forward to make “VUZ-Flahertiana” a year-round film club in a partnership and mentorship of the Perm Cinema Center,”

notes Elena Malkova, Vice-Rector for Youth Policy, PSU.
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