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France-Russia Year: the date is set for 2010

The programming for France-Russia Year 2010, which will be rolled out simultaneously in both countries, covers three principal objectives:
-    updating and enriching each country’s knowledge of the other partner country;
-    encouraging, in all fields of common interest, the development of cooperation and exchange flows;
-    enlarging the circle of players in French-Russian relations, particularly among the rising territories and generations of each country.

Through a huge variety of events, the programme intends to cover culture, trade, industry, agriculture, scientific research, education and sport. At the heart of this year lies the promotion of one of the vital stakes for our country, which is the creativity at work in each of these fields.

In terms of economic and commercial relations, France will be the first country to be guest of honour at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2010. Currently being drawn up, the programme will also include French-Russian meetings in France.

Targeted events attracting wide media coverage will highlight the importance of current and future cooperation projects in numerous fields (energy, managing urban networks, building, transport, aeronautics and space, automobile construction, the pharmaceutical sector, agriculture and the food industry).
Amongst other features, space cooperation will be in the spotlight with a planned exhibition following the first flights of the Soyuz rocket from the Kourou base.

At the same time, Ubifrance will be pulling out the stops all through the year, implementing reinforced promotion actions designed to constantly extend the circle of companies distributing French know-how and the Art of Living in Russia.

The cultural events, much awaited by the public in both countries, have also been carefully prepared by the organisers of the Year. The programming will focus greatly on creativity, with major events open to a wide public, and particular attention given to the younger generations.

A number of artistic collaboration projects, in every discipline and every format, will put creativity firmly at the heart of this France-Russia Year. Choreographer Angelin Preljocaj will bring together the Bolshoi and his own dancers in a contemporary ballet, which will be produced in Moscow and then in France a few weeks later. The Opéra de Paris National theatre and the Bolshoi will unite their efforts to co-produce an opera commissioned from Philippe Fénelon, based on themes from Chekov’s “Cherry Orchard”.
Several theatres all over Russia will welcome French directors to put on performances with Russian actors. Cross-over residences by artists, choreographers, photographers and writers will be organised in both countries.

Another aim of the French programme in Russia is to enable Russian audiences to discover or find out more about contemporary creativity in France through a group of exhibitions and festivals in areas as diverse as architecture (with an adapted reprise of the “Générocités” exhibition), art (with, in particular, Annette Messager and Claude Lévêque), fashion, decorative arts and design, music and dance.

The Year of 2010 will be rich in prestigious events with high media coverage to ensure their diffusion to the widest possible public. Russia will welcome: a major tour by the Comédie Française, from Siberia to the Gulf of Finland; the Opéra de Paris ballet troupe, which will perform “Paquita” in Novossibirsk; an itinerant festival of street theatre on board a vessel on the Volga; a Writers’ Train crossing Russia on the route of the Trans-Siberian railway to ensure the widest public discovers today’s French literature.

Many of the great museums, in the capitals but also in the regions, are preparing a remarkable programme of exhibitions. The Louvre will present 900 years of Russian art, up to the 17th century, in collaboration with more than ten Russian museums, from March 2 to May 26, 2010. Among the French exhibitions being prepared for Russia we can single out: in Moscow, the “Ecole de Paris” at the Pushkin Museum and “Napoleon and the arts” at the state history museum; in Saint Petersburg, the manufacture de Sèvres at the Hermitage Museum; in Yekaterinburg, the very best of Nancy’s museum collections.

Finally, France-Russia year is determined to address younger generations. The most noteworthy emerging talents from both countries will be in the spotlight; indeed, the artistic programming has been designed in close collaboration with numerous explorers of contemporary creativity in France, such as the “Transmusicales”  of Rennes for today’s music, “les Subsistances” in Lyon for the stage arts and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris for the plastic arts. Exchanges and partnerships between training establishments will be created because of this Year, in a wide range of disciplines (fine arts, circus, dance, theatre, photography, digital arts, etc. Finally, each event will be designed to awaken or reinforce the interest of young people in both countries in the multiple facets of past, present and, above all, future relations between France and Russia.

Nicolas Chibaeff

French General Commissioner