Cinema as Cultural Brand: HSE Art and Design School, École Intuit.lab & CAFA Competition

On 14 November, the HSE Art and Design School, together with the French design school École intuit.lab and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, launched the international competition Culture Mirror — a project in which students from Russia, France, China, India, and Brazil explore iconic films from other countries and create contemporary visual and communication brands inspired by them. 

Each country selected five landmark films that reflect its cultural codes, social experience, and visual traditions. Participants work with films from partner countries: they are expected to study the plot, context, and artistic language of foreign cinema and reinterpret it through the lens of their own culture. The outcome should be a new visual identity, communication campaigns, or brand concepts that capture the spirit of the original film while speaking the contemporary language of another country. This format gives students the opportunity to step beyond local experience and use design tools to engage with cultural differences, exploring how visual solutions can become a bridge between cultures seeking to understand one another.

A few days before the launch of the competition, Mitya Harshak, head of the HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL – St Petersburg, travelled to France to discuss the partnership with Intuit Lab and lead a series of workshops for students at its Paris campus. On 14 November, he took part in the official launch of the competition and, together with Clément Derock, co-founder of Intuit Lab, held two online webinars for students and faculty across different countries and time zones. During the webinars, participants reviewed the key rules and submission formats and received practical advice on how to develop their ideas into full projects.

Projects may be submitted until 15 January 2026. After that, national juries will select five top works from each country, and in March the international jury will determine the finalists and winners.

Five winners — one each from Russia, France, China, India and Brazil — will receive a week-long cultural trip to one of the partner cities: Paris, St Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai or São Paulo. In addition, 15 outstanding projects will be included in a travelling exhibition that will be showcased across all participating institutions.

The films selected for the competition span different genres and eras: from Brazilian urban realism ('City of God') and Chinese martial-arts traditions ('The Grandmaster') to French comedic aesthetics (Amélie), Indian epic dramas ('Devdas', 'Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India'), and contemporary Russian drama ('Petrov’s Flu'). This diversity challenges students to work not only with different storylines but also with fundamentally different cinematic languages and cultural worldviews.