On December 4, 2020, social networks were blown up by the story of how five of the 15 animators who went to the final of the animation competition as part of the Kinopobe International Festival fell ill, and two of them-young girls-died. The Fontanka.ru publication figured out this story.

Viral was the post of chief editor of Soyuzmultfilm Studio Sergei Kapkov on Facebook:

“A monstrous story, to tears, to goosebumps ... Fifteen young people passed selection and were allowed to pitch animation projects at the film test festival. Of the fifteen five, the Covid-19 (every third!) Failed a couple of weeks before the event. They promised to protect projects online, Natalia Egorova was in contact with them. But ... one of the girls-21-year-old Shura Grushina-died. Her father was going to participate instead of her, in memory of her. For some reason, he stopped in touch, apparently realized that there was no sense in this ... But on the day of Pitching, in the morning, it turned out that the infection claimed the life of another young talented girl-26-year-old Natasha Malgina. Statistics are terrifying !!! I am already silent that the connection with the other three patients also disappeared, the phones are disconnected, they do not answer letters. I really want to believe that they just changed their minds. Once again: five of the fifteen people in different parts of the country! Two died. Three are unknown ... young, determined, talented! Please take care of yourself! It's scary ... Well, look at these girls who dreamed of devoting their life to the kindest of arts ... "

Photos of the festival booklet - the faces of dead girls and brief biographies were attached to the publication:

Of course, such a series of events could not but cause shock, and the message began to actively reproduce. Reposts were followed by publications in some Media. However, objections appeared. In particular, the former television journalist Sergei Kuropov drew the author’s attention to the mass of inconsistencies in the booklet biography Grushina: the university and the faculty are called differently, the girls are not in the list of graduates. In addition, the profiles of both finalists could not be found in social networks.

However, Kapkov, until a certain point, struck the skeptics, and the reason for this was the presence of first -hand information: the curator of the animation section of the festival Natalia Egorova told him the story. She was engaged in the selection of projects and talked first with girls (online), and then with their relatives who told the terrible news. Moreover, Yegorova promised to connect the Fontanka correspondent with loved ones in Malgina so that a talented girl could write an article.

In parallel, Fontanka began its own journalistic investigation, which showed that Natalya Malina and Shura Grushina never had a home address or phone number, did not buy tickets for an airplane or train, and did not share their work on the Internet. An additional occasion to suspect a mirror -free photo of Natalia in a booklet - this was noticeable in the inscription on the T -shirt. Well, the cherry on the cake was the obvious fact of plagiarism. The characters from the competitive application by Malgina turned out to be the heroes of the comic book of the artist Daria Borsuk, and the characters from the application by Grushina - the heroes of another artist from the same community.

Having compared some data on two artists, Fontanka journalists went to their colleague from Lipetsk-Dmitry Zarkanitsky. The 29-year-old animator stood out by the fact that his project work “Charovot” also fell among the treasured 15 applications for the “film test”, which went to the Pitching stage, that is, an official presentation in order to search for investors. In addition, Kornitsky represented another work for his “friend” by Kirill Antonov.

A young man working in a nursing home with a salary of 10,000 rubles, quite quickly confessed that suspicious applications were the work of his hands. Dmitry always dreamed of opening his own animated studio, but had no financial opportunity. The winner of the animated competition "Kinopro" was supposed to be a prize of 50,000 rubles, to which you could promote their series. Kornitsky decided to increase the chances of success and added work on behalf of Kirill Antonov (colleagues with whom he quarreled a year earlier). But he did not stop there and sent five more applications, and all seven of his “creations” fell into the short list of the competition.

After it was time to defend work on the pitching (this could be done online), the authors of applications suddenly began to disappear. The death of Shura Grushina wrote her “father”, the sad news of Natalia Malgina was informed by “Sister Olga”, and then a message came about the death of another finalist, Vladimir Vershkov. Two more participants stopped in touch, and their phones were blocked.

Five dummies, according to Zavretsky, were a kind of Frankensteins: a photograph of one friend, biography - another, the project - the third. In all projects, according to the mystifier, he took part in one or another capacity and was going to attract their authors to work in the animation studio of his dreams. Moreover, he was sure that the story of the Covid-19 would not go beyond the scope of the festival.

And although Kornitsky sincerely repents of his deed and calls it “pranks”, the story was continued not only in the moral and ethical plane. The director of the Kinopobe festival, Lilia Nemchenko, stated that a fake of applications and speculation on the topic of death are crimes that should receive legal status. In addition, directly in the comments on the publication of Fontanka, one of the authors who became a victim of plagiarism was noted. He accused Kornitsky of theft and drew attention to the fact that he gave the festival all the rights to someone else's story after the girl disappeared after the girl disappeared. And in the publication on the social network "VKontakte”, Dedicated to a high -profile occasion, almost all those who suffered from the actions of Zavretsky were noted. They illustrated their complaints with screenshots of their own work, as well as correspondence with the main character of the hoax, known among the animators near Nickner Zarim.

Fortunately, the story of the death of two (and taking into account the later message-three) young people from the Covid-19 turned out to be a fake. However, it should serve as a lesson. Life in the quarantine era dictates its own rules, and people began to participate in the events of the very different levels online, and often simply by correspondence. Therefore, the organizers of any events that, for one reason or another, may interest potential scammers, should think over the adequate mechanism of personality identification.