OIFF 2021: The 12th Odessa International Film Festival will be held on August 14-21 in an offline format

Details about the current program and the start of accepting applications for the participation of films in the 12th OIFF will be announced shortly.
The OIFF press service reported this to the New Ukrainian Cinema portal.

“Each Odessa International Film Festival is special in its own way.
Last year, due to obvious circumstances, we successfully experimented with the online format, and even then we understood that the festival as a whole needed fundamental changes.
Therefore, we started this year with the development of a completely new strategy for the development of the Odessa International Film Festival,” says the President of the Odessa International Film Festival Victoria Tigipko.

In addition to the dates of the film festival in Odessa, it also became known that the OIFF changed the leadership of the team.
Anna Machukh became the Executive Director of the Odessa International Film Festival.
During 2011-2016, Anna worked as the director of the marketing department of the OIFF, from 2017 she served as the director of the OIFF Film Market, and from 2018 to 2020 she was the director of strategic development of the festival.
Anna Machukh is also the executive director of the Ukrainian Film Academy and co-founder of the online platform for the audiovisual sector, DzygaMDB.
From now on, Ekaterina Zvezdina is the Chief Operating Officer of OIFF.
She has been working at the film festival since 2016, until 2018 she was the PR director of the OIFF, and in 2018-2020 she was the director of the Film Market.
Alexander Kholodenko, who has been working as a member of the OIFF Directorate since 2011, became the Director for Strategic Development of the Odessa International Film Festival.
An independent selection committee will also be created at the festival, headed by Alik Shpilyuk.
Until 2014 he was the program director of the OIFF, since 2015 he has been the program consultant of the festival.
Also, Alik Shpilyuk is the art director of the Ukrainian Film Academy.
Tatiana Vlasova, who has been in this position since 2018, remains the PR director of the festival.

“The past year has convinced everyone that we need to look for new forms and formats of existence, quickly adjusting to circumstances.
Despite the fact that the online format in which the 11th film festival took place was a very interesting experience for all of us, the audience still lacks the festival atmosphere.
Therefore, this year the Odessa International Film Festival will be held offline, but in a changed format and with a new team to optimize all organizational and preparatory issues,” notes OIFF executive director Anna Machukh.

Let us recall that the 11th Odessa International Film Festival in 2020 was held online from September 25 to October 3 under the motto "Let the cinema go home." The main award of the 11th Odessa International Film Festival, Grand Prix, went to the American indie comedy “Dinner in America” (directed by Adam Remeyer). And the “Audience Choice Award” in the National Competition Program was awarded to the film “Victor_Robot” (directed by Anatoly Lavrenishin).