"Dialogue of Cultures - 2018": how it was
09.11.2018
Since 7th till 9th of November the International media forum "Dialogue of Cultures" took place in the State Hermitage. It was three amazing days full of public talks, workshops, trips and exhibitions. You can read in our article about everything what was there.
On November 7, at 11 am, in the Hermitage Theater there were practically no empty seats: this year it received 400 participants from 35 countries who spoke different languages before the opening of the Media Forum. Talented photographers, directors, representatives of major publications, journalists, bloggers and authors of unique projects devoted to the problems of modern media gathered here.
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"Every journalist tries to understand modern information reality. The majority of projects were made so talented that we can get the authors` understanding easily. The most important thing in journalism is a talent. I am glad that only talented people presented their projects here".
Immediately after the opening forum participants joined the official program of «Dialogue of Cultures». After two meetings with the topics "Dialogue of cultures and culture of dialogue in the Eurasian media space" and "Dialogue of cultures and digital technologies - new opportunities for communication" there took place screening of documentary films and discussions. Both film directors from different cities of Russia and foreign videographers participated in film screenings. Everyone tried to tell the hidden side of the life of their homeland and show its diversity.
On November 8, works of photographers from more than 30 countries of the world were hung on the walls of the General Staff building of the State Hermitage. The theme of the exhibition was "Here I live" and it didn`t limit the participants, that is why the basis of the pictures were children's dreams, the oppression of women and the unity of red-haired people. Photographers from Scotland, Egypt, Spain and Russia, welcoming guests at the opening, briefly explained the message of their photo series. Later in the day were held workshops of Kiran Dodds (scottish photographer) and Gleb Fedorov (Russia Beyond).
The final of the second day of the Dialogue of Cultures was the presentation of the sign "For the Contribution to the Dialogue of Cultures". The international journalistic community has compiled a list of mass media, programs and Russian media persons, which over the past year have made the greatest contribution to the development of the dialogue of cultures. The organizers interviewed 500 Eurasian respondents and selected the winners based on the voting results. This year, the statuettes were presented to the editorial staff of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the RT International website, the Kultura TV channel and to kapellmeister Vladimir Spivakov.
"All of us have smartphones. The only thing for us to do is to talk on the language of photos. Training of your eyes is a daily labor. Every day we should go to the museums and theaters, watch good films and drink fine wine."
Yuri Molodkovets, photographer
Russian photographer Yuri Molodkovets has an account on Instagram which now is in third place in popularity of museum resources in the world. He agreed to lead a live workshop about photography for journalists and announced the launch of a new hashtag #digicultures: "I will follow this hashtag and if you make a unique work I will repost that on our page Hermitage_museum". Ashot Dzhazoyan gladly supported this idea and said that for the beginners these steps could help "to learn to photograph and not to take pictures."
Foreign participants of the Forum not just discussed further cooperation but also started it. Photographers Kieran Dodds (Scotland) and Chris de Bode (Netherlands) made a photo series at the State Hermitage. "We shot the same objects on our own without discussing. I don't want to tell you the whole idea however I can tell you that one of the objects of our attention were empty chairs. I guess you could see this on the next forum "Dialogue of Cultures" – Kiran Dodds said.
Two French cameramen Marvin Kanas and Lucas Palen, who presented their film "As long as we go east", decided to make a new project. The main character decided to travel from Vest Europe to St. Petersburg using only skateboard. Marvin and Lukas offered to gather a group of young journalists who would make a return journey from east to vest on skateboard or by soviet car "Volga".
The last day of forum was conducted outside the walls of the State Hermitage. Film crew from Ossetia, journalists from Egypt, Dania, Belarus, Latvia, Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Saratov, Astrakhan and Dagestan were set off on working trips to Great Novgorod and Vyborg. As a result each of the participants had made reportages and plots for the mass media they are working for.
Foreign participants of "Dialogue of Cultures" say that the third day of forum was the most fascinating and informative from the Russian culture point of view. This trip on cities of Russia has become great ending of Media-forum which was organized by Media congress "commonwealth of journalists" and state hermitage with the help of presidential grant Fund.
Diana Ignatovich, Olga Mineeva, Natalia Podlyzhnyak / press of «Dialogue of Cultures»