Alexey Serebryakov to Appear at 6th Annual TORONTO RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL, 10/16-18

The 6th Annual TORONTO RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL (TRFF) is proud to announce this year's lineup focusing on the films of Alexey Serebryakov, returning to Innis Town Hall at the University of Toronto, October 16-18, 2015. This year's Festival will feature nine films, including five feature films and four shorts; all of which will highlight performances by the biggest name in Russian cinema today, Alexey Serebryakov who will be in Toronto for the Festival and will participate in post-screening Q&A sessions following every film. Serebryakov has been acting in film and theatre for four Decades and boasts a filmography that includes more than 150 works.

Opening the Festival, on Friday, October 16 at 9:30pm, will be the Oscar and Palme d'Or-nominated film, Leviathan (2014), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. Starring Alexey Serebryakov in the role that catapulted him to international fame, the Golden Globe Award-winning film premiered at Cannes and also won for Best Screenplay at the Festival. The polarizing film is an UNCOMPROMISING retelling of the story of Job, but with a hard-working auto mechanic in Northern Russia battling a corrupt mayor who wants to take everything the man has. The same year Leviathan screened at TIFF, representing Russia in the Masters programme, the Canadian-made short film Liompa, also starring Serebryakov as part of the Short Cuts Canada programme.

Saturday, October 17 at 4pm will see the World Premiere of Klinch (2015), directed by Sergey Puskepalis, and Hammer and Sickle (1994) at 7pm, directed by Sergei Livnev. An exhausted teacher is near the end of his rope when a strange woman follows him home, tries to steal his briefcase and accuses him of being the reason for her girlfriend's suicide in Klinch.

Twenty years since it first premiered in Russia, Hammer and Sickle is set in the 1930s and tells of a state-sponsored sex-change operation for a young peasant woman, in the centre of the Stalinist project. He becomes a model Soviet citizen but eventually realizes the artificiality of his position and tries to assert himself independent of the state.

On Sunday, October 18, TRFF will close with a series of shorts, beginning at 1:30pm and including Liompa, My Name is Happiness, The Letter, and The Dive; and the feature films PiraMMMida and Cargo 200 at 3:30pm and 6pm respectively.

Filmed in Toronto, Liompa (2014), directed by Elizabeth Lazebnik, is about a dying man trying to retain control of his body and the world around him; My Name is Happiness (2010), directed by Vardan Hakobyan, is the story of a random chance encounter for love; The Letter (2006), directed by Matvei Zhivov, follows an injured soldier in World War II Russia reflecting on the atrocities of war; and in The Dive (2015) directed by Olga Gorodetskaya, the host of a television program finds out that he's become famous on Youtube and his producers decide to take advantage of this newfound fame.

Based on the autobiography of Sergey Mavrodi, PiraMMMida (2014), directed by Eldar Salavatov, traces the rise and fall of and his infamous MMM company and one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes. The final film of TRFF, Cargo 200 (2007) directed by Aleksey Balabanov, is widely considered one of the most controversial films to come out of Russia. It is 1984 and the end of Soviet society. A daughter of a district communist leader disappears and a grim murder committed is in the outskirts of the same town. The same crooked cop is assigned to investigate both crimes in this gritty thriller.

Founded in 2009, TRFF has presented over two hundred movies to film lovers in Toronto!

IF YOU GO:

TORONTO RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL

October 16-18, 2015

Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto
2 Sussex Ave, Toronto, ON, M5S 1J5

Alexey Serebryakov will be in attendance at every screening

All films screen in Russian with English subtitles

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 20159.30pm - Opening Night: LEVIATHAN + Q&A
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 20154.00pm - World Premiere: KLINCH + Q&A7.00pm - HAMMER AND SICKLE + Q&A
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 20151.30pm - Short Cuts: LIOMPA; MY NAME IS HAPPINESS; THE LETTER; THE DIVE + Q&A3.30pm - PiraMMMida + Q&A6.00pm - CARGO 200 + Q&A

All tickets are $18, Students/Seniors $10

To purchase tickets, visit russiantix.com or call 647.466.3555

For more information visit TorontoRussianFilmFestival.ca / Facebook/TRFF.

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