
Renata Dzhalo
Directing
Biography
Renata Dzhalo was born in 1997 in Saint Petersburg to a Russian mother and a Bissau Guinean father. In 2021 she graduated from VGIK, where she studied in Alexei Uchitel’s studio of experimental cinema. Her debut feature-length work, the documentary film Lenechka, about composer Leonid Desyatnikov, received an award at the Message to Man IFF. She directed a play based on her own script, Vitya Needs to Leave, which was performed at the School of Modern Drama, House of Cinema and the 8/3 Stage. On This Land is her first experience in feature-length fiction filmmaking.
Known For

The closed campus of an experimental university on Russian Island. Student Sonya Kimaeva returns from abroad to the academy's dormitory to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend. But during the time that Sonya was absent, the situation has changed dramatically, and now excerpts from the personal diary of the deceased, replete with shocking details, are in the hands of students and teachers. Every day, more and more new secrets of students and teachers of the Academy become known to everyone, thanks to the anonymous blog "Your big secret". And this element cannot be stopped.
My Big Secret

Vera and Tatiana are the daughters of the late Soviet director and screenwriter Alexei Istomin. Vera is preparing to star in a Hollywood blockbuster and leave the country forever. Tatiana is starring in a popular TV series, but dreams of real dramatic roles. Their mother Agafya Alexandrovna heads the foundation named after her late husband and is engaged in film production and production. Circumstances force all three to start shooting a film based on Istomin's unrealized script. This project should save or finally sink the foundation. That's how two daughters and a mother end up on the same set.
Nomination

High school student Denis is an amateur gamer and an ordinary teenager who communicates with network users much better than with his peers at school. When the situation becomes critical, his own video game avatar comes to the rescue. IIIRAM helps the hero gain self-confidence, even if his methods are questionable and his advice is often unethical. Denis aka IIIRAM receives an offer from the world of professional eSports, and his life changes dramatically: the first money, new acquaintances and a chance to get the attention of a girl that he had never even dreamed of before.
Headshot

15 August 1990. Viktor Tsoi, the Soviet Union’s most famous rock star, leader of the band Kino, a symbol of freedom and change, dies in an accident on a Latvian highway. The bus driver who was involved in the tragic accident will bring his body back to Leningrad. A party of mourners – Tsoi’s wife and her new boyfriend, his mistress, his producer, his young son and an obsessed photographer – are part of the trip back. This is going to be a long trip, the perfect occasion for an agonizing unravelling of love, jealousy, ambition, and greed.
Tsoi

Leonid Desyatnikov is the most played Russian composer of today. Unparalleled, his music is performed all over the world from the Bolshoi Theatre and Paris’s Opéra Garnier to Milan’s La Scala and New York’s Carnegie Hall. While he usually shuns publicity, this time, he will open up to share some of his innermost thoughts. From the genius’s weekday routine and musings to the bold premiere involving the iconic conductor Teodor Currentzis, this movie is an attempt at unraveling the enigma that is the paradox of the composer’s music and persona.
Lenechka

In late 18th-century Russia, village life is shaped by a fusion of rural superstitions, pagan beliefs and traces of Orthodox Christianity. Twin girls are violently separated when one is believed to be possessed, accused of draining the vitality of her sister. Meanwhile, a young man, branded a freak and outcast, obsessively constructs mechanical wings in a desperate attempt to fly like Icarus. Overseeing this turbulent world are Europeanised feudal lords who maintain brutal, cynical control over the peasants, exacerbating class tensions.
On This Land

The film is about trying to find yourself through a relationship with relatives who are very far away.
Skype
Forty-year-old Olya is a doctor with an ambulance crew. For a long time her life has been lacking in drama. But then comes the pandemic. It brings new anxiety, new risks, new worries about her sick colleagues, and it also brings… love.