The purpose of the festival “Eurasian Bridge” does not come down to the traditional notions of establishing relations between East and West or Europe and Asia. The Crimean context invites deeper and broader generalizations. Cinema draws on the depths of history and modern transculturalism to replenish its powers and study historical and modern developments, which are reflected in various aspects of the program, in different styles and genres from the newest spectacular premieres which traditionally open and close international festivals to the retrospective screenings which this years are devoted to the pivotal events of 1917. The bridge between past and present is central to the conception of “Eurasian Bridge”.
 
Essential to the competition of live-action features is the principal of variety and free associations which an attentive viewer is bound to notice.
 
Tatiana Voronetskaya’s “The White Nights” presents Dostoevsky’s classical work (following Ivan Pyriev, Luchino Visconti and Robert Bresson) in the retro black and white stylistics of the “Thaw” of 1960s. “Little Prince of Our City” (which refers directly to the classical work by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) by the Kazakh director Talgat Telmenov and the Russian film “Sella Turcica” by the Uzbek Yusup Razykov outline the multicultural connections in traditional Eurasia. The movie “Light Up!” by the young and already famous actor and director Kirill Pletnev demonstrates the creative resilience of the young Russian cinema, while “The Death of Louis XIV” is made at the juncture of European performance and video art and is the result of the unlikely collaboration of the Catalan experimenter Albert Serra and the aged classic of the New Wave Jean-Pierre Léaud and gives an amazingly realistic account of the last days of the Sun King.
 
The geography of the Competition is amazing – from the Balkan countries, where a Russian boy feels lost in Greece, the cradle of European culture (“Son of Sofia”) to the centre of China, our powerful neighbor (“What’s In the Darkness”) with the traditional European social drama in between – films from Italy, Switzerland and France “Pawn Street”. In total 8 movies of the main competition represent 11 countries.
 
The gallery of the latest works of film art is amplified by the Russian movies “Thawed Carp” and “Once Upon” which will present to the viewers our most famous actors and actresses of different generations: Marina Neelova and Alisa Freindlikh with Yevgeny Mironov, Fyodor Dobronravov and Roman Madyanov will create striking, memorable and sometimes unexpected and grotesque characters.
 
The panorama of world cinema includes films which participated in and won awards at the prominent world film festivals: the Hungarian movie “On Body and Soul” by Ildikó Enyedi, “The Other Side of Hope” by the famous Finish director Aki Kaurismaki, “Rodin” by the French filmmakers Jacques Doillon and “Les Fantômes d'Ismaël” by his cult fellow countryman Arnaud Desplechin with two great actresses Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg and finally the closing part of the philosophical trilogy by the British Jury member Gareth Jones “Delirium”.
 
The live-action panorama of the past and present is completed by the documentary competition.
 
Program director of the Yalta International Film Festival
K.Razlogov