Today, on 21 August, the Third International Independent Film Festival KinoLev 2008 was opened in Lviv. The official grand opening of the festival will be the movie academy in Mariya Zankovetska Theatre. According to the art director and founder of the festival Oles Dzyndra, Ukrainian fiction film celebrates its 100^th anniversary this year. Therefore, “mute classics” will be demonstrated during the movie academy – “Man with a movie camera” by Dzyga Vertov, with musical accompaniment of Lviv Symphony Orchestra.

Demonstration of films will take place on the main festival ground in Bernardengarden at 9:30 pm from 21 to 24 August, as well as in Les Kurbas Theatre and Voskresinnya Theatre. Terrace from the northern side of City Hall will host “AniLev” – demonstration of animation films.

On Friday and Saturday, the children animated cartoon studio Red Dog will hold animation master classes To catch Miki Mouse. The newly created cartoons will be demonstrated in the evening.

Another special feature of this year festival is the high-quality selection of retrospective movies, collected under the common name “Ukraine in the eyes of the world”. The audience will have the chance to see the films Galicia – Land of Dilemmas by Olha Onyshko (USA), Import-Export by Ulrich Seidl (Austria), La Zona by Carlos Rodriguez (Spain), The Unknown Woman by Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy), English Surgeon by Jeffery Smith (Great Britain), “Dance” by Roxy Todorovich (USA).

On Saturday, 23 August, the festival organizers are planning to set a new reference point for cinema development in Lviv – when a round table “Business-Government-Cinema. Perspectives of Cinema Industry in Ukraine” will be held in the City Centre of History of Central and Eastern Europe. O.Dzyndra noted that he hoped for the “serious conversation and adoption of declaration as a result of the event”.

In general, 422 films from 31 counties were announced for participation in the festival. 106 films from 22 counties were chosen for the final demonstration. This year KinoLev will be able to manifest itself as a full-scale festival, where animation, experimental, documentary and fiction short and full-length films are demonstrated.