The Jury of the XXI International Documentary Film Festival "Won Together" has been Announced
The international jury of the XXI Vladimir Menshov Documentary Film Festival "Won Together" has been announced. In 2026, it will be headed by Peter Kuznik, Professor of history at the American University in Washington and Paris, director and founder of the Nuclear Studies Institute in the USA. His most famous film work is the 10-episode film "The Untold Story of the United States," co-directed with Oliver Stone.
The jury will also include:
Alexander Ageev — Director General of the International Research Institute of Management Problems, member of the General Council and Chairman of the Scientific and Expert Council of the World Peoples Assembly, member of the Club of Rome,
Alexey Pishchulin — director, editor-in-chief of the "Museum’s World" magazine,
Pan Zhiqi (China) — director, winner of the MIFF Documentary Competition (2024);
Martin Mhando (Tanzania) — President of the Zanzibar Film Festival,
Nicholas Rooney (UK) — Director,
Liliana Kawase (Brazil-Portugal) — Producer,
and many others.
Creative meetings with documentary filmmakers from all over the world, as well as presentations of their works created in 2025-2026, will be held in Moscow and Sochi on September 14 - 24. The event will bring together documentary filmmakers from more than 40 countries and 39 cities of Russia, revealing in their works the themes of victory in various spheres of life, peacemaking, religious tolerance and humanism. International participants include films from China, India, Serbia, Iran, Argentina, Mexico, Israel, Costa Rica, Burkina Faso, and others.
Dozens of foreign documentary filmmakers and historians will come to the festival to present their films, act as speakers, serve on the jury of the student work competition and the press jury. Among them: producer, Honorary President of the Association of Film and Television Playwrights of China Yu Xiaogang (China),
Helene Perroux (France), Laila Akhmetova and Elena Kovardakova (Kazakhstan), Mariana Rivera (Mexico), Alexey Dymov (Canada), Frederico Benevides (Brazil), Yannis Kostavaras (Greece), Khandoker Hassan (Bangladesh), Ayana Subanova (Kyrgyzstan), Said Nabi (Iran), Typhoon Belet (Turkey), Youssef Alari (Kuwait), Jure Kreft (Slovenia) and others.
The "Happiness of Victory" monetary award, established by the information partner of the film forum, the Aggregator of Happiness media holding, will be presented at the festival for the first time in 2026. The award recognizes the authors of films about the power of human hope, the ability to find light even in difficult circumstances and maintain faith in the future.
Creative meetings with the authors of competitive and non-competitive works, presentations, round tables, open lectures and master classes will be held at the festival venues. The educational block of the festival will be complemented by the "Overcoming" film school for creative youth.
The main Moscow venues of the festival in 2026 are:
September 14-17 — House of the Russian Diaspora (Nizhnyaya Radishchevskaya Street, 2);
September 15-19 — House of the Peoples of Russia (21 Podsosensky Lane, p. 1).
"Memory" includes works about the events and exploits of the Great Patriotic War and World War II; "Reflection" — films about achievements and overcoming obstacles in the modern world. The program of the festival includes a national competition in which films on historical and modern topics will be presented, and an international competition in which there are two blocks: "Memory" — works about the events and exploits of the Great Patriotic War and World War II.
The national competition, the jury of which will be headed by writer, screenwriter Yuri Polyakov will include creative meetings, premiere screenings and presentations of films will take place: "Amina" (directed by David Uvzhikoev), "All Simplicity in a straight Line" (directed by Irina Vasilyeva), "War through the eyes of a diver" (directed by Maxim Katushkin), "The People's War. The Volunteers" (dir. Maxim Kuznetsov), "Deep Rear" (dir. Pavel Pechenkin), "Danila the Master" (dir. Stanislav Schubert), "Dixon. Conversations with silence" (dir. Veronika Berdina), "Live" (dir. Svetlana Istomina), "Out of the Comfort zone" (dir. Maxim Korolenko (Yakubson)), "The Flyers" (dir. Amir Abbyasov), "Mansi from the village of Lopaevo" (dir. Natalia Savras), "The Night Nurse" (directed by Artur Sokolov), "Cucumbers, potatoes, bread" (directed by Ilya Vologurov), "Alone. Field. The Warrior" (directed by Artem Somov), "Crime will not take place: a fight in the sky" (directed by Vladislav Oleynikov), "Paint our House" (dir. Inna Kudryavtseva), "Homeland. Mother" (dir. Yana Bekh), "The Power of the Weak" (directed by Galina Yevtushenko), "Dance of the Hero" (directed by Radik Kilmamatov), "Three Sisters" (directed by Lolita Ismailova), "Lessons of Love" (directed by Hieromonk Serafim (Alexey Solodovnikov)), "Guardians" (directed by Ella Tukhareli), "Chekhov Sakhalin" (directed by Ivan Golovnev).
The program of the international competition includes creative meetings, discussions, audience discussions and other events dedicated to the films "Chat&Rap" (dir. Mohamed Ali Rakshani, Iran); "Flower Hunters" (dir. ""Falcons Piercing the Sky" (directed by Hu Yu, Li Jingwei, Xu Jiaxing, Sun Ji, Meng Chonglei, China); "Identification and Memory" (directed by Facundo Cantelmi, Argentina/"Mexico"; "Marathon Mom" (dir. Rebecca Shore, Oren Rosenfeld, Israel); ""The Emulsion of Time" (dir. Pablo Wong, Costa Rica); "Stream-history" (dir. Amit Dutta, India); "Village of Women" (dir. Victorien Vialard, Burkina Faso); "Milk and Honey" (directed by Marko Jukic, Serbia) and many others.
The student work competition will include 14 paintings from Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, and Uzbekistan.: "The Block" (dir. Maya Bitan, Israel); "Echo" (dir. Dan Grabnar, Republika Srpska); " "Milk and Honey" (dir. Sara Maric, Republika Srpska); "Under repair" (dir. Beatriz Machado Oliveira, Portugal); "The Tree of Life" (dir. Ayyana Surbanova, Kyrgyzstan); "Sadon" (dir. Valeria Isaikina, Russia); "Thank you for the world!" (Uzbekistan); "Circus of Happiness" (dir. Miroslav Blazheski, Russia, Macedonia); "Yrka" (dir. Daria Feshchenko, Russia); "Little Man" (dir. Maria Vasilyeva, Russia); "The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus" (Russia); "Enrico Caruso" (Russia); "Egor's Space Adventures" (Russia); "Parajanov. Cinema without film" (Russia).
"The organizers" of the film festival are the World Peoples Assembly, the Sochi City Administration, the "Integration" production center, the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio and the company "Intellectual Resource" with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the World Public Assembly.
"Partners": The Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation, the Regional Cinema Support Fund, the Film School Project, RUDN University of Sochi, the Center for Creative Industries of the International Research Institute of Management Problems, the "Memory of Victories" Foundation.
Media partners: Publishing house "Arguments and facts", TV channels OTR, MIR, VGTRK: "Vesti Sochi", IA "InterMedia", portals "Sochi News", "Culture. "Literary newspaper", "Utro.ru", IPQuorum, "TV workers", "Network of history", Moviestart.
Additional information is available on the official websites of the Film Festival and the World Peoples Assembly, as well as at media@world-assembly.org.
Regarding accreditation issues: media@world-assembly.org..
The photo archive is provided by the press service of the film festival.