Conference
Eastern European Cinema
•
Drama
Natalia, a nun from a remote Russian monastery, comes to Moscow 17 years after the terrorist attack on the Dubrovka Theatre. She has been sent there to organize a memorial evening for the victims of the attack that took place in October 2002. We soon learn that Natalia and her family were witnesses to the attack. Almost forgotten now by the outside world, the organizers and participants of the memorial evening or the Conference (as they have been asked to call it officially) are made to feel like a burden by the rest of the society. Following the chronology of the events as told by a few participants in the memorial evening, we learn the dark details of Natalia's personal story.
Directed by acclaimed Russian filmmaker Ivan Tverdovskiy, CONFERENCE premiered in competition at Venice Days and won multiple awards at the Cairo International Film Festival including the Silver Pyramid for Best Director.
“Along with the film’s plot, the intensity of its topic and its surprising protagonist, it is the work of DoP Fedor Glazachev that makes CONFERENCE so impressive, through his vigorously varied techniques, which include disorienting close-ups, monumental wide shots inside the theatre, skewed POV angles and often surprising lighting related to the theme's religious dimension."
–Cineuropa
DIRECTED BY IVAN I. TVERDOVSKIY
RUSSIA, ESTONIA, UNITED KINGDOM, ITALY | 2020 | RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
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