Director Vladimir Kott's comedy film Dedmobil will open the 7th Lendoc Film Festival in Saint Petersburg on August 20, organizers announced.
The three-day event, officially named the VII International Film Festival of Russia and Neighboring Countries, will showcase 40 pictures from 13 nations across feature, documentary, historical, and student film categories.
Kott's opening feature follows a driver with 30 years of road experience who loses his job and agrees to pose as the driver of a smart driverless taxi to earn money for an urgent operation for his dog.
The festival will screen Dedmobil on August 20, three months ahead of its scheduled wide theatrical release on November 26. For the main character, his pet's life is on the line, while the vehicle must secure a high passenger rating without exposing that no human is operating it.
Kott is an established Russian filmmaker known for comedy and drama, while festival host Open Film Studio Lendoc is one of Russia's oldest documentary producers, located in Saint Petersburg.
Festival program and co-productions
Scheduled over three days, the festival program includes public film screenings, co-production pitching sessions, a legislative assembly meeting, and the first International Screenwriting Laboratory.
Participating films originate from Russia, Commonwealth of Independent States member countries, the BRICS alliance, and other friendly states. Organizers highlighted that a portion of the films were made as joint co-productions, reflecting the festival pitching program's mission to advance shared film manufacturing across Eurasia.
The BRICS grouping and Commonwealth of Independent States form key economic and cultural ties across Eurasia, providing a framework for joint artistic projects.
Lendoc Film Festival program director Marina Ozerenchuk said the lineup was curated around emotional tone rather than geography or famous names, focusing on films that breathe despite difficult circumstances.
Ozerenchuk explained that the selection spans meditative parables, harsh war dramas, eastern magic realism, and themes of human loneliness, using metaphors such as rivers representing memory and looms reflecting the human soul. She added that veteran directors were deliberately placed alongside debutants to maintain the festival's vital energy.
Regional cinema and historical themes
The non-competition program CIS Cinema Days, taking place for the third time in partnership with Russian film promotion organization Roskino, features major historical and genre works from partner studios.
Highlight screenings include Kazakhstan's historical epic Tamerlane, depicting commander Timur during the collapse of the Mongol Empire and the decline of the Great Silk Road, as well as mystical thrillers Cassandra and Dastur: The Curse from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Timur, known historically as Tamerlane, was a 14th-century conqueror whose empire stretched across Central Asia, making his reign a frequent subject of regional cinema.
Historical topics continue in the Memory and History section, featuring works on poetess Olga Bergholz, Belarus hero pilots, and the Leningrad Zoo during the Great Patriotic War.
Bergholz served as the daily radio voice of blockaded Leningrad during World War II, broadcasting speeches and poetry that sustained public hope throughout the nearly 900-day siege.
Young filmmakers and jury panels
Contemporary subjects are featured in the Documentary Stories of Today program, while student and training works are grouped under the Young Cinema section.
Student entries include films from VGIK, the Saint Petersburg State University of Film and Television, Seance Film School, Open Film Studio Lendoc, YeniseyFilm, Turan University, the Kazakh National Academy of Arts, the State Institute of Arts and Culture of Uzbekistan, and the Kyrgyz National University of Culture and Arts.
Moscow's Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, known as VGIK, was established in 1919 and is recognized as the world's oldest film school.
The feature film competition jury includes Channel One film screening director Sergey Titinkov, directors Vladimir Kott, Kim Druzhinin, and Ernest Abdyzhaparov of Kyrgyzstan, and writer Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina.
Documentary works will be judged by Union of Cinematographers of Tajikistan head Safar Khakdodov, directors Ilya Zheltyakov and Anna Ganshina, and producer Yunir Aminev.
Co-production pitching and attendance
During the event, a pitching session for feature and documentary projects focused on international co-production will award winning teams producer support and co-production agreements.
All festival events and film screenings are free to attend, though attendees must complete registration on the official festival website.
The Lendoc Film Festival is organized by Open Film Studio Lendoc alongside Kinoculture, with official support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.
