On August 6, 2025, a festive atmosphere reigned on the square in front of the Digital Business Space as guests—famous actors and directors—were awaited. Everyone was preparing for the opening of the II International Antares Film Festival, which, by tradition, is dedicated to everyday workers.
And most importantly—the festival began with a parade of real heroes: the Parade of Professions. To the applause of the audience, the first to walk the red carpet were not movie stars, but representatives of a wide range of professions: construction workers and doctors, cooks and firefighters, teachers and pilots... This parade set a very important, proper tone for the entire event, reminding everyone that it is the labor of ordinary people that deserves the greatest respect.
Eighty young men and women from the Russian Student Teams—future specialists in various fields—walked the red carpet. They embodied the true creators whose work builds the future.
Huge gratitude to the guys for their incredible energy and sincere participation in the Parade of Professions!
We would especially like to thank Yaroslav Zubashchenko, Head of the Central Headquarters, and his deputy Yulia Pozdnyakova for their support and for organizing the participants.
Special thanks also go to our friends from Belarus. The workwear for the Parade of Professions participants was provided by the enterprise “MRIYA” from Grodno. On behalf of the festival organizers, we thank General Director Maria Stanislavska and designer Silveriyush Stanislavski for this heartfelt and pro bono support.
What connection could there possibly be between the world of cinema and the plain reality of a work overall? The most direct and profound one. Cinema is an art about life. And life is created precisely by them: the welder, the baker, the agronomist, the doctor.
This parade was conceived to break through the noise of the digital age. Antares wanted to convey a simple idea: the foundation of the world is not in virtual reality, but in true professionals. In those who, with hammer in hand, a keen eye, and love for their craft, build what everything rests upon.
Aleksandr Khalimovsky, President of the Antares Film Festival, and Aleksandr Shershukov, Deputy Chairman of the FNPR, who reviewed the parade, watched this living river of professions with pride and attention. Their handshakes and words of encouragement were filled not with formality but with a deep understanding of the moment. It was a dialogue between generations and spheres of responsibility: cinema, which must tell stories truthfully, and trade unions, which are called upon to protect the rights of those about whom these stories are made.
“Art without a basis in life is not art. Life without a taste for art is an animal existence.” — said legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. The Parade of Professions at Antares became precisely that desired synthesis: a basis in life and a taste for high art.
This act serves as a reminder to filmmakers too. It calls on them to descend from the heavens to the earth, into workshops, into fields, into school classrooms and operating rooms—where the real, unvarnished pulse of life beats—to find there the most honest and poignant stories.
We thank the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia for their sincere support of the Antares Festival and the Parade of Professions. It is important to us that the trade unions, which every day defend the interests of workers, shared with us the idea of honoring the worker. Their participation helped make this event truly significant.
When all the parade participants in their beautiful uniforms representing various professions lined up on the red carpet, the square erupted in applause.
“Work is the only thing that gives life meaning. But for work to become meaning, it must be creative,” — wrote the writer Joseph Brodsky. The Parade of Professions at the Antares Film Festival showed the whole world that any work done with love and skill is an act of creativity.
And when the filmmakers ascended the stage to receive their awards, they surely remembered whose red carpet they had walked—the carpet laid down for them and for all of us by the hands of the Worker.
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