This is the first time so many Russian filmmakers came to Toronto.
General Director of the Moscow International Film Festival and head of the delegation, Natalia Semina, read a letter of greeting from Nikita Mihalkov, president of MIFF, at the festival’s opening reception. The reception, held at the ROM, was attended by the political and business йlite of Toronto--Ken Dryden, MPP , Thorne-Stone President and CEO Ontario Media Development Corporation, Robin Rhodes, Senior Manager Film Circuit Group TIFF, Robin Cass Partner and Producer Triptych Media, representatives of the Russian General Consulate in Toronto and many others.

"Just Not Now", a Russian-Polish Film directed by Valery Pendrakovsky, was screened twice with the first screening offered with free admission at the Polish Cultural Centre in memory of passengers killed in a plane crash near Smolensk. Highlighted on opening day, of course, was Egor Beroev, who played the main character in "The Man Who Knew Everything" where he signed autographs and posed for pictures with several lucky guests.

Other industry notables included Armen Adilkhanyan, Producer of "Alenushka's And Yeryoma's Adventures" and Yosif Feyginberg, director and co-producer of the documentary film "Prokofiev.Unfinished Diaries". Canadian producer Felix Golubev, presented his documentary "Treachery". Russian writer Irina Borisova and her spouse, artist and director Michael Bezchastnov, made the trek from New-York to Toronto for the festival Opening, as well. Day Two saw writer Edward Topol, presenting his film "On the Brink I Stand" while the brilliant actress/director Vera Glagoleva left festival goers speechless with her film "One War". Despite the time constraints of an extremely busy schedule, Edward Topol and flying in all the way from Europe, Vera Glagoleva, set aside an entire two days just to meet Toronto viewers before Glagoleva was forced to return to Europe once more. During the trip to Niagara Falls, Vera received the wonderful news that her film "One War" had achieved "Grand Prix" at the Festival in St. Petersburg. Congratulations again, Vera!

The rule better “preproduction means better production” reigns supreme on every film set and at the call for "Action!" everything is left behind to focus on creativity and excellence. Holding a film festival is much like producing a movie. The development of the project runs through the same stages from creating the idea to development to the script to even the main characters. Once all those are decided, a group of people with the same view bands together, the parts are cast and they begin on the inevitable search for funding. The concept of the TRFF was three years in development and the mutual collaboration of festivals between Russia and Canada came into being this year when the Canadian Mosaic (The days of Canadian Cinema) took place in Moscow. Cinema Club was founded by supporters who presented Russian Films at the Film Festival in Gimly for the first time in history.

To have TRFF in Toronto, in a city that has more than 70 different film festivals a year, this needed special preparation. If not for such enthusiastic people as President of the Festival Valery Kogan and General Director Lada Tarasova, the festival might never have come into being and cheerleaders of the project like Alena Zhukova would have been forced to continue to live on dreams just as a lot of writers and screenwriters do. Instead, organizers Valery and Lada found good professional producers in Felix Golubev and Eugenia Protsko, Anzhela Lebedeva and designer Liliana Grup and this made all the difference.

However, even the best of the teams can't work without being supported by friends and volunteers and the assistance of those who provided media support through newspapers and television was invaluable. A big “Thanks!” goes out to Luba Cherny, general media partner of TRFF (newspapers "Karusel" and "Canadian Courier", NTV-Canada), Maria Vorobieva, Alla Kadysh, RTVI and Ethnic Channel, Natalya Nikitina (newspapers "Russian Canadian Info" and "Gazeta Plus"), Boris Nusenbaum ("Radio Plus") and Oleg Nakarikov ("TV Guide" magazine). Svetlana Dvoretskaya and Anna Charchorina from Show One Production also leant their expertise to this project and have our appreciation.

We would like to thank our main sponsors EuroLuxe and Russian Standard Vodka. Though the founder
and owner of Russian Standard Vodka, Rustam Tariko, was unable to visit the Opening Ceremony in person, during a private interview he stated that "our people should always help our people" and that events of this calibre were a personal favourite of his.

We also hope for further collaboration with Rustam Tariko.

Our warmest thanks to those who opened their homes to famous guests, hosted parties for them, provided for their transportation and even sightseeing in and around Toronto--guests of the festival were particularly pleased with excursions provided by Yury Tsivi. One thing is certain, guests of TRFF didn't want to leave and even better that the Toronto audience didn't want to let them go! Thanks to all who came to see the films; your great interest in our event far exceeded our expectations.

With the close of the Festival, though the lights were turned out over empty cinemas still ringing with the voices of favourite actors, directors and producers as their flights whisked them away again, even the roar of jet engines could not drown out their resounding "Till next Year at TRFF!"