ST. PETERSBURG – Indisputably, the most eccentric and dynamic independent film event in Russia is St. Petersburg's Deboshir Film Festival, subtitled "Pure Dreams," which serves as a forum for Russian and international low-budget and experimental filmmakers.

Arranged by actor-director Alexander Bashirov's Deboshir Film studio, this year's festival will be the fourth and will take place at the St. Petersburg House of Cinema (Dom Kino) from Nov. 6-9. In addition to film showings, there will be live performances by an array of alternative bands from Russia and Finland at the Fish Fabrique club.

The man behind the festival is an inimitable cult figure. Bashirov was born in 1955 in the village of Sogom in the Tyumen region. He studied filmmaking at the All-State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in the late 1980s and acting at the Berhow Studio in New York from 1990-1991.

Bashirov's film roles have been a gallery of assorted impetuous oddballs. He has acted in more than 20 films, a significant number of which are now cult classics, including Sergei Solovyov's fluke "Assa" and more, recently, Alexei German's harrowing, uneven "Khrustalyov, Mashinu!" (Khrustalyov, Get My Car!) in 1996, Bashirov founded the Deboshir Film Studio, where he is both the artistic coordinator and a filmmaking teacher.

This year's screenings will open with a showing of Sergei Eisenstein's landmark 1925 film "Stachka" (Strike). Though not as well-known as the endlessly quoted "Battleship Potemkin" and rarely shown in theaters, the film is no less significant, as it and "Potemkin" are the only two films over which Eisenstein had complete creative control. It is a seminal work, as it pre-dates "Potemkin," and it was the first film to effectively use the concept of montage. Scenes of rioting workers furious over the death of one of their own, intercut with images from the animal world that form an intriguing absurdist aesthetic. "Stachka" is a truly revolutionary film, in every sense of the word.

"Stachka" is a natural choice as it resonates with Bashirov's own work. His 1998 feature-length directorial debut "Zheleznaya Pyata Oligarkhii" (The Iron Heel of the Oligarchy) is played with elements of the absurd and is clearly influenced by Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko, with nods to both "Potemkin" and Dovzhenko's "Zemlya" (Earth). "Zheleznaya Pyata," available on video in Russia from Drugoye Kino, tells the story of a certain Nikolai Petrovich (played by Bashirov), who is fighting for the rights of unappreciative workers languishing in a decaying industrial wasteland. His second feature is the quirky but mordant documentary "Belgrade, Belgrade," which was shot in the Yugoslav city during the NATO bombings in 1999. The film premiered at the festival two years ago, and will be shown again at this year's engagement.

Another significant screening event is a mini-retrospective of four films by Mika Kaurasmaki, who will be in town for the screenings. He is one of the two Kaurasmaki brothers (the other being Aki), Finland's hippest and most internationally visible film director. A significant number of his films are road movies with exotic locales.

"I've been to St. Petersburg at least 10 times over the years," Kaurasmaki said. "Bashirov's festival showed Aki's films last year, and the idea was that this year they would show mine, and show different films from different times [of my career]." Kaurasmaki added that he is planning to shoot films from his new movie, tentatively titled "Natasha," in Petersburg.

One of his best films will be shown – the documentary "Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made," featuring the late American filmmaker Samuel Fuller on a trip to the Amazon jungle accompanied by fellow director and friend Jim Jarmusch. In 1954, Fuller went location scouting for a John Wayne jungle-action film in a remote region of Brazil, which was eventually scrapped to due Hollywood insurance companies' jitters about potentially hazardous location shooting. He befriended the Karaja Indians and shot footage of their rituals, which he only got to show 40 years later. "Tigrero" chronicles the odyssey with photos, segments from the Karaja footage and a documentary of the return trip with Jarmusch. Three other films by Kaurasmaki will be shown – "The Worthless," "Zombie and the Ghost Train" and "Highway Society."

The festival features shorts by other Finnish filmmakers, and three Finnish bands will perform at the festival: experimental act Mr. Money, ambient wizards Aloha Junktion and pop-rock outfit Maryland. Also, about 15 Russian bands will perform, including Tequilajazz, Leningrad and Kolibri. Israeli students from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will screen their short works, as well as filmmakers from a plethora of European countries.

"On the fringe of the mainstream film and TV industry, something more real and freakier is growing – which is paradoxically more honest and has more of a future," Bashirov commented on the festival's offbeat programming.

"The social and aesthetic incisiveness of these films is scandalous to some degree, which is what we want," he adds, "because planned social relevance is absolutely necessary, not only to define the forms of the festival but also to underscore the aversion we have to the current cultural and social climate. [It also helps] make a concerted effort in the support and development of an alternative, unengaged consciousness."

What: Film Festival
When: Nov. 6-9.
Where: St. Petersburg.
House of Cinema (Karavannaya Ul.12; Metro: Gostiny Dvor; Tel.: 314-8036.
Fish Fabrique Club (Ligovsky Prospekt 53; Metro: Ploshchad Vosstaniya; Tel. 164- 4857.)
Tickets: 50-150 rubles.
|Information: 237-0072 or 237-0304 or on the Website: http://debosh.az.ru.