From Russia with love

"Most of the soldiers who fought in the battle were very young, with an average age of about 22. The war broke out without warning. Many didn't even have time to grab their weapons — instead, they seized whatever was at hand, such as bricks or sticks, to join the fight. Yet, their enemy was the well-trained German army, equipped with some of the most advanced weapons in Europe," says the director, highlighting the war's brutality.

Of the eight films selected for this year's festival, half are set against the backdrop of 20th-century conflicts, particularly World War II or the Cold War. Aside from His Name Was Not Listed, the other three movies are all adapted from real-life events: Carusa (also Karuza), about a boy and his puppy; Blood Type, a harrowing account of Nazi atrocities at a children's concentration camp; and The North Pole, which recounts the voyage of the first Soviet nuclear submarine, K-3, under the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

The rest of the festival's selection includes three fantasy tales — The Frog Princess, Finist the First Warrior, and The Bremen Town Musicians — and one sci-fi romance, HomE, which fictionalizes an AI robot's yearning to establish a bond with a genius AI developer.

Carusa begins in 1939 with a young boy, Mitya, receiving a puppy as a gift. Their idyllic life is shattered a few years later by the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War and the devastating siege of Leningrad. As Mitya's family starves amid the brutal conditions, their loyal dog risks everything, even a deadly minefield, in search of food.