Echo of the first New Holland Island International Debut Film Festival at the Garage Screen cinema

Fiction, documentary and experimental film form a wide-ranging dialogue within both the competitions and special programmes.

We place a particular emphasis on our educational programme, which encourages aspiring filmmakers and established professionals from around the world to share their experience.

In Moscow, the audience will be able to see the winning films of the festival, attend the world premieres of the debut films Mom, I befriended ghosts by Sasha Voronov (Main Competition) and Danton’s Death by Andrey Stadnikov (Made in Russia programme), see the only Russian participant of the Rotterdam Film Festival competition, Babai by Artem Aisagaliev (Made in Russia programme) along with the long-awaited Russian premiere of The Image Book, the latest film by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard and a new short film dedicated to him, France Against the Robots by another classic of political cinema Jean-Marie Straub.

A special programme Inventing the Future, dedicated to different concepts of the future and the connection of cinema with modern philosophy will be screened in Garage in full. It was named after the work of Isiah Medina, a young experimental director from Canada and based on the book of the same name by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams. Other participants include a film featuring a conversation with the founder of cyberfeminism Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival and a dedicated to Eurasianism poetic video essay by Metahaven, a Dutch collective of artists and designers, Eurasia (Questions on Happiness). The screenings of these three films will be followed by a discussion with various researchers from Russia.

Another key event of the New Holland Island International Debut Film Festival’s echo will be held as part of the programme: the Russian premiere of IWOW: I Walk On Water, shot by an African-American director and photographer Khalik Allah. This three-hour cinematic trip through the streets of Harlem in search of enlightenment is one of the brightest and most unconventional documentaries of the year.

The festival was organised by the team behind the New Holland: Cultural Urbanization project, itself founded in 2011 by Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova, patrons of art and culture in Russia. The main goal of the project is not only to restore the ensemble of historical buildings on New Holland Island, but to give them new meaning, bringing their use more closely in line with today’s cultural landscape.

New Holland is a manmade island situated in the very heart of Saint Petersburg. Founded at the same time as the city itself, the island was closed to the public for over 300 years. In 2011, New Holland Island presented a series of temporary summer programmes for the first time. The island today is a fixture of Saint Petersburg’s social and cultural life, where history and modernity are interwoven in a unique space. The classical architecture sits in perfect harmony with the picturesque park, which plays host to a varied programme of cultural events every year, from concerts to public art exhibitions.