It all started with the idea of introducing the St. Petersburg audience to "unseen" unique national cinematographs - Azerbaijani, Kyrgyz, Georgian, Kazakh, and throughout 2020 the Lendoc team was looking for rare films from regions of Russia and the near abroad to show on the big screen films that are usually not released in wide distribution, but are shown at major international festivals (Venice, Shanghai, Moscow International Film Festival) and are nominated for Oscars.


In 2022 the festival is growing and in addition to film screenings there were more than 20 cultural events, including co-production film projects pitching, meeting of the CIS film studios managers, master classes of film industry representatives from Russia and CIS countries.
Lendoc Open Studios is being joined as new venues by such renowned St. Petersburg cinemas as Aurora, Rodina, and Dom Kino, with Lenfilm joining in 2023.