National Competition program "Russian Flahertiana" is formed. It includes 14 films shot in Russia during the last year. They are made both by famous documentary filmmakers and those who are just starting their career.

One of the doc cinema masters participating in the national competition will be Aleksey Pogrebnoy with the film "The Fatherland’s Smoke" about the fate of the Vyatka actress who left in the early 90s to Amsterdam. Pogrebnoy is an old friend of Flahertiana. In 2002, his film "Sorry for Being Alive" received a prize for the best feature film of the festival, and in 2013 the director was already the President of the International Jury.

Another well-known participant of this year's competition is Evgeny Golynkin. In 2017, he finished the film "Everyone Wants to Live Forever" about a cardiac surgeon and a major collector of contemporary painting, Mikhail Alshibay. This is not his first work on cardio surgeons, his previous film "The Heart 40 years later" viewers saw at the last year’s Flahertiana.

Other notorious films of the program are "Heavenly Jester" about the composer Oleg Karavaichuk directed by Sergei Lando, who worked together with Aleksey Uchitel, and the film-winner of many Russian competitions "The Last Robinsons of the Sea of Okhotsk" by Svetlana Bychenko.

Films of young authors also entered the national program. Some filmmakers studied at the school of Marina Razbezhkina. For example, Zaka Abdrakhmanova will present the film "My Love" about her uneasy family relations. A similar problem was shot by the director Byron Renato Borraio Serrano, who was born in Guatemala but a few years ago he moved to Russia and graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). Filmmaker’s mother-in-law (and one of the main characters of his new film) Aunt Swallow came to visit the newly born grandson. She really loves this baby with Russian-Guatemalan roots, although she is embarrassed that he is "too brownish". "Films for Carlos” was already shown at festivals, and everywhere he met positive feedback from the audience - everyone laughs.

The film, shot in Perm, entered the program as well. Director Olga Averkieva will present the picture "Let Me Live My Life" about an important but rarely discussed topic – the fight of pupils of psycho-neurological boarding schools for the right to manage their own lives independently.

The winner of the Russian Flahertiana receives the Small Golden Nanook and a money prize of 25,000 rubles. The festival will be held from 14 to 20 September.

National Competition "Russian Flahertiana" 2018:

Granny

dir. Lyudmila Bychkova

VovaNina

dir. Natalia Nazarova

Everyone Wants to Live Forever

dir. Evgeny Golynkin

Let Me Live My Life

dir. Olga Averkieva

The Fatherland’s Smoke

dir. Aleksey Pogrebnoy

Uncle Sasha, or One Flew over Russia

dir. Tatyana Soboleva

My Love

dir. Zaka Abdrakhmanova

Rigid Hitch

dir. Alexander Kalashnikov, Mikhail Tarkovsky

Artificial Respiration

dir. Galina Leontieva

Film for Carlos

dir. Biron Renato Borraio Serrano

Shamanic Lessons for Beginners

dir. Svetlana Stasenko

Heavenly Jester

dir. Sergey Lando

Sing

dir. Olga Korotkaya

The Last Robinsons of the Sea of Okhotsk

dir. Svetlana Bychenko