The first Russian Film Week festival was held in the United Kingdom between 30th November and 4^th December 2016 in 9 different venues across London and Cambridge. The festival became the most prominent Russian film event to be held outside of Russia and the most successful cross-cultural national film festival in Great Britain. It was attended by more than 50 top directors, actors and producers from Russia, UK and Europe and an audience in excess of 4500 people. 

27 films were screened including Anna Melikyan's 'About Love', Kirill Serebrennikov's 'The Student', Vera Glagoleva's 'Two Women' and a premiere screening of Yuriy Vasilyev's 'Heritage of Love'. The numerous workshops and Q&A sessions were led by Anna Melikyan, Renata Litvinova, Vera Glagoleva, Alexey Uchitel and many other attending actors and directors.

The Golden Unicorn Awards ceremony concluded the festival to recognise excellence in 11 categories plus a special award and was held in the format of a Charity Gala in support of the Gift of Life UK. The Best Film and Best Actor awards of 2016 were given to The Student by Kirill Serebrennikov and its lead actor Pyotr Skvortsov and Renata Litvinova received the Best Actress award for her role in Anna Melikyan's film About Love.