What moves people in Russia who live far from the capital—in both a literal and a figurative sense? The film Russia as Phantasma came into being in the framework of a festival of experimental cinema in the Siberian town of Kansk. Twenty international authors created fantastical narratives, their own and those of local residents, that portray life and death in a provincial Russian town. We will screen extracts from the film and talk to the festival’s long-standing artistic director, Nadya Bakuradze. Tatiana Golova, a sociologist at ZOiS, focuses on narratives of a different kind. On the basis of interviews with local actors in Novosibirsk, she investigates what makes people become active. From these different perspectives, we want to discuss how creative behaviour and escape from a routine are enabled and shaped by institutions.

Participants

• Nadya Bakuradze is a curator and film-maker. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the Kansk Video Festival, the first Russian festival for experimental film and video art. In 2015, together with directors Andrey Silvestrov and Daniil Zinchenko, she produced the collective film project Russia as Phantasma.
• Tatiana Golova is a research associate at ZOiS, where she is conducting a research project into public mobilisation and activism in regional centres in Russia.