Oh, the hours of procrastination ahead of us. Russian weekly Russky Reporter [Русский Репортер] has joined forces with MySpace in launching a competition for short films about “real life” in modern Russia. The contest is designed to expose young filmmakers, cinematographers and other “creatives” to the world around them. All entries must focus on something in the public sphere, and must run no longer than 25 minutes. They must contain conflict, characters and a plot, and cannot be “silent” (some sort of text is mandatory). Those last three rules are a tactful way of saying, "Go easy on the art school stuff, kids."

Since they began accepting entries on December 1, the competition has generated 11 MySpace-featured films, including a satirical exposé called Axes in Loaves [Топоры в батонах], which needs no translation to watch once you know the title. Further exploration yielded a no-budget high school drama about teen pregnancy and an entry titled Regular Schizophrenia [Регулярная шизофрения], which documents the double-lives of upstanding Russian citizens who become different people on the weekends — through the use of drugs and alcohol. In short, we haven’t discovered a budding Tarkovsky yet, but occasionally a terrible film can get to the heart of “modern Russian life” better than a masterpiece.

Конкурс на лучший короткометражный фильм о городском пространстве современной России [MySpace]

Photo courtesy of Wheeties.wordpress.com