In fact the seven-day, 109-film event involves the screening of more movies than you could shake a stick at -- let alone watch.
Special guests Gina Lollobrigida and French director Agnes Varda will grace the packed festival with their presence, along with a host of slightly less luminous stars such as Andrew Birkin and Felix Falk. The festival is celebrating 100 years of moving pictures.
Varda, one of the rising stars in the current crop of French movie makers, will be here for the Russian premiere of her latest piece, "Les Cent et Une Nuits" (A Hundred and One Nights).
The film features French stars Michel Piccoli, Henri Garcin and Emmanuel Salinger as well as containing a cameo appearance from Robert De Niro.
Farce and drama rolled into one, Varda's latest cinematic tour-de-force examines the decadence and sophistication of the well-off and middle-aged, while taking a penetrating look at the generation itching for their moment in the spotlight.
"The Cement Garden," Birkin's soulful, post-modern excoriation of the Western world's incapacity to deal with the alienation and anger of its youth, is another highlight.
The backbone of the event is the Festival of Festivals section of recent world cinema, which showcases films from 25 countries. Argentina, Australia, Great Britain, Japan, France, Germany and the US are just a few of the points of origin for the festival's offerings, and all of the films have been acclaimed at other recent festivals.
Great Britain is particularly well represented with six features on the program, showing at either the Avrora or Kolizei cinemas.
In addition to Derek Jarman's parting, and posthumous masterpiece, "Glitter-bug," and Ken Loach's "Raining Stones," Milco Manchevski's hauntingly evocative "Before the Rain" and the powerful and tragic "Hedd Wyn," directed by P Turner, will be screened. Ken McMullen's "There We Are John" and G Sluizer's "Utz" round out Britain's contribution to the festival.
"Before The Rain" deals with the mysterious Zamira and her impact on the lives of those she touches -- including the young Macedonian monk Kirill and the broodingly handsome Aleksandar.
The suspenseful and skillfully wrought movie received the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival last year.
"Hedd Wyn" is the fateful story of World War I poet and Welsh national hero Ellis Humphrey Evans. Evans, the Hedd Wyn of the title, died in an ambush in the early '20s and was mourned by all Wales.
The film creates an air of Celtic mysticism through a series of evocative montages using the Welsh landscape.
Last year "Hedd Wyn" became the first Welsh-produced, Welsh-dialogue film to receive an Oscar nomination.
Jarman's "Glitterbug" -- completed after the director's death of AIDS complications -- is an effervescent collage of music, motion and visual associations full of all the life that the acclaimed auteur was kissing a bittersweet goodbye.
The solitary offering from the US is Robert Altman's exquisitely intricate critique of the grinding Hollywood movie industry machine, "The Player."
The film was the first to really allow Tim Robbins to stretch his acting legs, in the role of a studio head who rashly reacts to a series of threatening postcards and places a brilliant career in jeopardy.
As he squirms and scuttles his way towards hopes of safety we are treated to a stark look at the underbelly of Tinseltown and a seemingly unending sequence of cameo appearances by Hollywood stars only too keen to help sling mud at America's dream factory.
Also of interest is Japanese master Akira Kurosawa's 1993 work, "Madadayo." Twice honored with the Best Foreign Film Oscar, the 84-year-old Kurosawa has produced another lesson in the human spirit's indomitability in the face of all perils, even old age.
In his 30th film, Japan's unparalleled auteur tells the story of Uchida, an ex-teacher who refuses to surrender to age and illness. Old and sick, he answers death's challenge by draining a large tankard of beer and proclaiming "Madadayo!" -- "Not yet!"
Japan's other offering at the event is Neko-Mimi by Jun Kurosawa (no relation to Akira Kurosawa).
Other sections of the international festival showcase new Russian films (19 in all at Avrora), a Pier Paolo Pasolini retrospective at the Barrikada and a series of Russian classics featuring the greats of world cinema at the Molodyozhny Theater.
The "Northern Palmyra" prize -- a bronze statuette adorned with semi-precious stones -- will be awarded to director of the festival audience's choice of best film. Previous winners were Sally Potter for "Orlando" (1993) and David Greenaway for "Baby of Macon" (1994).
The event was founded by Lenfilm studios, the Mayor's office of St Petersburg, Roskomkino, the St Petersburg Union of Filmmakers and the Pavlovsk Palace Museum.
An international seminar on "Co-production: From Idea to Implementation" has been organized by Lenfilm's Alexander Pozdniakov. Seminars will be addressed by world-renowned directors, producers, film lawyers and other film industry personnel and will be held at Dom Zhurnalistov.