VGIK International Student Festival

The film competitions award a Grand Prix and prizes recognising directing in fiction, documentary, animation, television and multimedia, acting, screenplay, cinematography, sound, production design, costume design and producing, alongside named and special awards. The international film competition also recognises the best film-school programme and the best fiction film, documentary, animated film and multimedia project. A student jury awards its best-film prize, and audiences in Russian regions determine an audience award. The theatre competition awards a Grand Prix, acting prizes, a special jury prize and an audience prize for the best acting ensemble.

The festival has a VGIK competition, an international film-school competition and an international theatre competition. For the 2026 international film competition, eligible fiction, documentary, animation and multimedia films are made between 30 June 2025 and 30 June 2026 at state higher-education institutions training film and television professionals. Private institutions are eligible where the participant’s country has no relevant state institution. Film schools preselect their entries; the submitted programme from each school is limited to one hour, and the whole competition to twelve hours. Selection is made by the festival selection committee. Submissions include an electronic application, a viewing copy with English subtitles, a director photograph, three film stills, a trailer or extract of up to 30 seconds and dialogue lists. Screening masters are supplied as H.264 files, excluding WMV and MOV, or DCP. The first stage accepts qualifying VGIK graduation films. Separate regulations govern the theatre competition.