Beat Weekend will be held again in Moscow

Beat Weekend, the the Beat Film Festival’s regional tour, will be held in Moscow from November 13th to 23rd, 2025.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Beat Film Festival is an international documentary film festival about contemporary culture, founded in 2010 by Alena Bocharova and Kirill Sorokin. It presents a mix of high-profile international films and experimental, adventurous works, including Russian documentaries with a strong focus on art, design, architecture, music, fashion, and media. The festival’s mission is to popularize documentary cinema and make it part of urban leisure.

Beat Weekend in Moscow

Beat Weekend, the festival’s regional tour, will run in Moscow from 13 to 23 November 2025, presenting a carefully curated selection of international and Russian documentaries on art, design, architecture, and more. It’s the annual “best-of” program drawn from the summer Beat Film Festival. Expect not only film screenings but also talks, discussions, and other special events.

Since 2010, Beat Weekend has toured every autumn, bringing the year’s highlights to audiences across dozens of Russian cities – so people can see films they might otherwise miss. This year, the tour will cover 21 cities (including Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladivostok). In Moscow, it takes place from November 13 to 23. Learn more about the festival’s history here: https://beatfilmfestival.ru/about/beat-film-festival

When and how Beat Weekend runs in Moscow

• Dates: Thursday 13th of November - Sunday 23rd of November 2025.
• Tickets and schedule: the up-to-date Moscow schedule is at https://beatfilmfestival.ru/schedule. Please check the screening times before your visit.
• The venues where the events will take place include:

1. GES-2, a contemporary art center on Bolotnaya Embankment;
2. Garage Museum of Contemporary Art;
3. The State Tretyakov Gallery;
4. MAMM, an exhibition space in Moscow and the first museum of contemporary art in Russia;
5. KARO 11 Oktyabr, a cinema and concert hall in Moscow with the largest premiere auditorium for 1,518 people;
6. Pioneer Cinema;
7. Zotov Center, a cultural center in the former Bakery No. 5 building;
8. Khudozhestvenny Cinema on Arbatskaya Square.

The 2025 program includes portraits of influential figures and outstanding people, films about architecture, design, art, and much more. So, everyone will be able to find something interesting for themselves.

Key films that are definitely worth watching:

• "Welcome to Lynchland" (2024, directed by Stéphane Guez) - a Cannes Film Festival premiere! A film exploring the art of one of the greatest directors David Lynch.
• "Anselm" (2023, directed by Wim Wenders) – a portrait of one of the most famous modern artists, Anselm Kiefer, who experienced much suffering, including World War II. His work often reflects on Germany’s 20th-century history and memory.
• "I Am Martin Parr" (2024, directed by Lee Shulman) - a portrait of photographer and photojournalist Martin Parr, a leading figure in documentary photography. The photographer is renowned for his irony and grotesqueness, as well as his photographic work on seemingly mundane subjects.
• "Modernism, Inc." (2023, directed by Jason Kohn) - a story of designer Eliot Noyes, who became the art director of IBM in the 1950s.  The film traces not only his career, but also family recollections: in the movie Eliot Noyes’s children reminisce about their father.
• "Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself" (2023, directed by François Németh) - a film about the great director who created everything from music videos (Björk, White Stripes) to legendary films ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind").
• "Concrete Time" (2024, directed by Igor Ivanov Izi) tells the story of Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, and how the city was rebuilt after the devastating 1963 earthquake. An international team of modernist architects oversaw the rebuilding, just as brutalism came into fashion. An emotional film about history and architecture.

Why HSE students should visit Beat Weekend

As a festival of documentary cinema from many countries, Beat Weekend is perfect for HSE’s diverse, international community. It’s a chance to explore different cultures and discover global perspectives on creative industries. You will catch interesting, conversation-starting films on art, design, architecture, music, and fashion.

Additional information for visitors:

- tickets are available on the festival website or directly on the venue websites;

- language and subtitles: foreign movies will be shown in their original languages with Russian subtitles;

- please note: museums and cultural centers can have security checkpoints that can take 15–20 minutes.

Don’t miss Beat Weekend - truly major cultural event!

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Maria Li