Central Partnership unveils fall season slate at TIFF

Central Partnership is attending the Toronto International Film Festival with brand-new Russian titles such as "The First Oscar", "Mission Sky" and "Ostap Bender". “Our slate has become more diverse as we continue our efforts in bringing the best of Russian cinematography to international audiences. It's not only important for us to work with domestic talent, but also look at international co-production and co-investment opportunities," commented Vadim Vereschagin, CEO of Central Partnership. "This summer we announced our first co-production with Latin American powerhouse BF-Film called 'Schizophrenic'. We are also co-financing 'Boundless', a story of the first round-the-world journey conducted by Magallanes and El Cano. And finally, we are working on some truly global projects that we will be announcing very soon at CineEurope in Barcelona”, added the executive.

“The First Oscar”, WWII drama by Sergey Mokritskiy (“Battle for Sevastopol”), is set to premiere in 2022. It centers on student cinematographers in pre-war Moscow who volunteer for the front line, where the horrors of war and the heroism of Soviet soldiers transform their attitude towards their art and life in general.

“100 Minutes”, Locarno official selection in 2021, is a new drama by Gleb Panfilov – a laureate of  Berlinale, Venice, Locarno and Cannes. It tells the story of a Russian soldier, Ivan Shukhov who returns from a Nazi prison camp. Under Soviet law, he is declared a traitor to the state and sentenced to ten years of forced labor in Gulag. Despite all the injustice, hunger, humiliation and fear, Ivan manages to maintain his best human qualities and stay hard-working, honest and sincere.

War action “Mission Sky” by Igor Kopylov is based on a true story that happened during the Syrian war in 2015. During a combat flight, an aircraft of two Russian soldiers is shot down. Both pilots eject after the aircraft is hit, but only one of them returns home alive. The movie will be released this October.

Central Partnership will handle global sales for “Ostap Bender” trilogy from the “Gogol” creators – Sreda production company. The adventure trilogy by Igor Zaytsev consists of three feature films. Ibrahim Bender and his young apprentice Ostap hunt for imperial gold, a priceless scepter which has slipped from under their noses and ended up in possession of an anarchist army commander. With mafia, partisans, and officers of the Red and White armies all determined to get their hands on the fabled gold cache, Ostap and his mentor must surpass their own brilliance to outmaneuver their rivals and snatch the prize.

Other long-awaited fall premieres include “The World Champion”, “The Pilot. A Battle for Survival” and “Row 19”. Thriller “Row 19” by Alexander Babaev centers on a young female doctor and her 6-year-old daughter, caught in a violent storm on an overnight flight. When passengers on the plane inexplicably begin to die, the woman’s grip on reality weakens, and she is forced to relive her worst childhood nightmare.

The WWII movie “The Pilot. A Battle for Survival” by Renat Davletyarov is inspired by a true survival story. It centers on an IL-2 pilot who crash-lands in a remote forest clearing after an action-packed air fight, and has to find his way back to a friendly territory battling hunger and extreme cold, evading packs of wolves and detachments of Nazi soldiers. The feature will premiere early November.

“The World Champion” by Alexey Sidorov (“T-34”) will premiere on December 30th. Co-produced by Three T Productions by Nikita Mikhalkov and Russia 1 The film follows the most dramatic and legendary showdown in the history of chess – the match between Anatoly Karpov, then world champion, and Viktor Korchnoi, a recent emigrant from the USSR. In this battle between two outstanding chess players, a duel of personalities under immense psychological pressure, the stakes are incomprehensibly high.