The IV Open Russian Film Festival of author's cinema "Winter" will be held in Moscow

The IV Open Russian Auteur Film Festival "Winter", which will be held in Moscow from December 1-7, 2025, presents a new visual image of the film screening and announces the name of the curator of the Winter Auteur Film Market — he will become a film critic, producer and program director of the Window to Europe and Gorky Fest festivals Andrey Apostolov.

The new image of the festival is dedicated to the art of surprise — the ability of cinema to evoke the most sincere emotions in the viewer. In 2025, the festival will host for the first time the Winter Cinema Market of Auteur Cinema, a new industrial platform where projects at various stages of production will be presented, from development to postproduction.

"The name "Auteur Cinema Market" itself sounds like a paradox, if not an oxymoron. We used to separate these concepts and assume by default that the author's cinema is not about the market, and the market is not about the authors. But, in my opinion, the experience of recent years in world cinema shows that auteur cinema and audience success are not two incompatible things. Let's recall the recent triumph “Everything is everywhere and at once” in the global, including Russian, box office. But it's not hard to imagine industry players who would dismiss this project as a fierce “artukha" or even “game". It is strange to see that against this background in Russian cinema, it has recently become increasingly difficult for auteur (or simply non-purely genre) films to escape from a kind of “ghetto” of purely festival rotation. I am convinced that the auteur cinema market is designed and capable of erasing this invisible and speculative wall of alienation between rental and “difficult” cinema. Our message is that auteur cinema can be interesting to the audience, it's just necessary, as it was said in the old advertising, "to be able to cook it," said Andrey Apostolov, curator of the Film Market.

Feature films (from 60 minutes) produced in 2024-2025, not released or posted on online platforms are allowed to participate.

The film market is open to projects at all stages of production. Projects at the pre-production stage require confirmed financing and approved shooting dates.

The Winter Open Russian Auteur Film Festival is held with the aim of increasing the prestige of Russian cinema, promoting auteur films, summarizing the results of the film season and promoting the development of the film distribution system in Russia. Natalia Mokritskaya is the program Director of the festival. Maxim Korolev is the general producer of the festival.

The objectives of the festival include restoring the audience's interest in auteur cinema, supporting the creative search for a new film language, developing young talents and strengthening the authority of Russian cinema.

According to the management of the festival, in 2024, "Winter" was attended by more than 11 thousand spectators for all days. The main award of last year was given to the film "Operation Cold". The film's director, Danil Ivanov, was named the best director, and Anton Kuznetsov was named the best actor.