This May 27-28, 2023, the Third International Film and Visual Arts Festival “The World Through Silence” will be held in Moscow, Russia.
Viewers will be able to watch for free the best Russian and foreign, full-length and short films, feature films, and documentaries about deaf people, as well as works shot with their direct participation.
“The World Through Silence” is a unique festival of films for our country, which not only tell about the life of deaf people but also clearly demonstrate their limitless possibilities and a variety of interests. The participating films are designed to change the attitude of society to people who have an extraordinary culture of communication in sign language and to show that every person in the world is valuable as a person, regardless of his characteristics.
The film festival is organized by the Regional Public Organization of the Hearing Disabled “The World Without Silence” with the assistance of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf, as well as with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, ROOI “Perspectiva”, and also the Theater of Mimicry and Gesture.
The opening of the film festival will take place on May 27 at the Moscow cinema “Tula”. The opening film is the winner of the Academy Award and many other international awards, the picture of the American production “CODA”.
Both new and already well-known paintings will be presented at the festival screenings. For example, the extraordinary film “Battle”, which has already received recognition not only in Russia but also abroad, is about a dancer who has lost his hearing, who, despite the difficulties of perceiving music and tact, continues to perform and even takes part in a rap dancers competition. The film of the English production “Hope” (“Hope”) – the winner of several prestigious international film festivals will also be shown.
Film works will compete in 11 categories:
- “The best feature-length feature film”;
- “The best short feature film”;
- “Best Documentary”;
- “Best Acting Ensemble”;
- “Best Male Lead role”;
- “Best Female Lead role”;
- “The best film about the rights of people with disabilities”;
- “The best director’s work”;
- “The best camerawork”;
- “Special prize of the jury of the film festival”;
- “Audience Award”.
In addition to film screenings, the festival guests will have interesting discussions that will bring together directors, film heroes, film students, representatives of public organizations to discuss films and the problems they raise.
Alexander Genievsky, Founder, President, and Artistic Director of the World Through Silence Film Festival:
“When creating our film festival, we proceeded from the fact that our society knows almost nothing about the problems, opportunities, and rights of deaf people. Unfortunately, most people are still at the mercy of stereotypes in relation to them. Meanwhile, many deaf people have a great desire and potential to become active members of society. The most important barrier to overcome is to change the attitude of society towards accepting people with hearing problems, and indeed with disabilities in general. To educate society, it is very effective to use visual means, and especially cinema, which helps to show the stories of very different talented deaf people, touching the feelings and pushing the audience to their own conclusions and actions. This is the main mission of our film festival – to show that deaf people are no different from others: they also want to live actively and interestingly, fall in love, make friends and create.”
All the films of the festival are provided with Russian subtitles. Discussions after watching the films will be accompanied by a translation into sign language.
Admission is free.
The number of people with hearing impairment, according to WHO:
Film program
The film program of the festival includes competitive and retrospective screenings of films, as well as an exhibition of art works by deaf artists, meetings of the audience with producers, directors, actors, artists and other creative people whose professional activities are related to the visual arts.