VII Lampa film festival - lighting hearts, pushing boundaries!

Online viewings of the best short films, lively discussions on social innovations, film and theatre on one stage, the yellow carpet - this year's LAMPA film festival is not afraid of experimentation. "The desire to support each other has become a consolidating factor in our society during these difficult times. All this is in harmony with the main objective of the LAMPA International Film Festival - to promote ideas of civic engagement, volunteerism and charity through cinematographic means", said Chairperson of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko in her welcoming speech.

For the audience in the auditorium and in front of the monitors, actor Alexander Petrov repeats #BELIEVEINOURSELF, which is the beginning of the journey towards oneself, overcoming fears and finding major meanings. The exclusive performance of Sasha Petrov #BELIEVEINYOURSELF opened the LAMPA 2020 film festival in Perm on October 14. The performance was a creative embodiment of the theme about the ability of any person to change his life, make a choice, and help those around him.

"This covid year, despite all attempts to divide us, has miscalculated, it has united us, our team, rallied a huge number of partners and new friends around us," said Olga Zubkova, President of the LAMPA International Film Festival and member of the Council of Public Television of Russia.

As part of the Forum's business programme, filmmakers shared the secrets of making life-affirming social films: "It is important to find a formula that will unite both our understanding of each other, our pain point, and the way to present it all. You have to write a script that will change your life," said Evgeny Morozov, an actor and director of the social video "Children are stronger than we are" created for the "Gift of Life" Charity Fund. The participants did not only talk about the development of short films. Actor and director Anton Bogdanov presented a teaser of his feature film Normal Only Me at the film festival. "This is the first film in Russia about the importance of building an inclusive children's environment with real children with different diagnoses, a film about children and for children. This is a real film technology that can be used by parents, schools and authorities to create an inclusive space," said the director.

"Seven years ago, it was hard to imagine how large, how genuine and sincere the film festival would become," Yana Poplavskaya, Chair of the LAMPA jury, shared with the participants. The festival builds bridges across continents, bringing peoples and countries together. The friendship between the film festival and the United Nations has continued since 2018, when LAMPA's best works began to be screened at international venues to support the UN's global sustainable development initiative. The importance of this missionary role of the film festival was noted in his address by Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN: "LAMPA makes a great contribution to the development of public diplomacy, allows to unite authors from different countries of the world, who talk about volunteerism and social innovation in their language understandable to everyone, the language of film and art".

LAMPA became a platform for practice-oriented dialogue between a large community of people for whom the theme of sustainable development is a core value and priority - companies that create socially-oriented films and support the production of social cinema. Ekaterina Pogodina, Managing Director of Janssen, the pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson, in Russia and the CIS, and General Director of Johnson & Johnson LLC, stressed the role of inclusion in the development of a sustainable society and the importance of creating films about social cohesion: "Art is a reflection of reality. Filmmakers of films about inclusion need to be inclusive of their audiences. Through inclusion, society will develop sustainably". As part of the 'Speak and Show' discussion, Irina Zhukova, Chairman of the National Council on Corporate Volunteering and Director of Sustainability and Corporate Programmes of affiliates of Philip Morris International in Russia noted the relevance of creating and promoting social media content for businesses that have made achieving the Sustainable Development Goals part of their strategy: "Volunteer action videos not only show our values and priorities, our attitude to global challenges and universal issues, but are also an opportunity to express gratitude to their participants.

7 years ago, the LAMPA film festival set itself precisely this goal - to tell as many people as possible about the versatility of volunteerism and the relevance of charity, and to motivate society towards positive social change. Today it's a film project that involves hundreds of thousands of people in 134 countries. According to Jude Kalman, one of the nominees of the 2020 film festival, a documentary filmmaker from Australia, the festival inspires filmmakers for further work and professional growth and gives participants a tool for professional development and growth.

On 16 October the winners of the film festival in 5 categories and the winners of 6 LAMP special prizes will be announced. The ceremony will take place in Perm and will be broadcast in Russian and English at www.fest.lampa.film.

With "LAMPA" it's brighter than in the cinema!

"LAMPA is a charity film project aimed at developing social video content and promoting volunteerism in the world. The events of the film festival are supported by the Presidential Grants Fund, Ministry of Culture of the Perm Krai. Official sponsors: MTS and Johnson & Johnson Ltd. Partner: affiliated companies of Philip Morris International Russia. Media partners of LAMPA FILM FEST 2020: Public Television of Russia, СТС Television Channel, Nashe Radio, etc.