Kinotavr Main Prize: "Good Boy", Oksana Karas
This year the unobtrusive and at the same time very modern, if not topical, work of director Oksana Karas was recognized as the best film. It will be about schoolboy Kolya Smirnov, about his first love (or first loves) and his first meeting with real life. In modern cinema, unlike, say, Soviet ones, there are no positive characters - this approach to business has long gone out of fashion, and no one will believe in absolute goodness. The hero of our time is Kolya Smirnov, who adjusts to reality as it happens. He is in love with the teacher, but does not forget to pay attention to the senior schoolgirl Ksyusha, the director's daughter, he investigates the arson of the computer class, he alone is responsible for the upcoming school holiday … That is, in short, a kind of very modern hero, to whom numerous gadgets and skills are attached to the load,accessible only to the most "advanced" student, in the world of illusions, weaknesses and disappointments.
Best Director Prize: "The Apprentice", Kirill Serebrennikov
Theatrical director Kirill Serebrennikov decided not to limit himself to Cannes. Well, in Sochi he was much more fortunate: even if not the main prize, but only an award for the best directing, but still better than nothing. And again, we will talk about the modern young generation. Serebrennikov shot his film based on a play by the German playwright Marius von Mayenburg. The director has already embodied the same play on the stage of his theater at the Gogol Center, and now he has decided to film his own production. In purely auteur cinema, Serebrennikov, who most of all loves to neglect the rules and preferences of others, talks about youthful maximalism. Quite an urgent topic: people who for some reason thought that they know and understand more than others, which means they can impose their opinion on society.
Best Debut Prize: "Someone else's work", Denis Shabaev
Talking about guest workers, taking them as an object for study is now in vogue. The film by Denis Shabaev tells about Farrukh, a newcomer from Tajikistan. Farrukh's life is much more like a blockbuster with special effects than the existence of the average migrant. The hero takes on any job, cherishing a dream in his soul, to become a famous actor, the dream does not want to come true, but Farrukh has an excellent opportunity to see the inside of the capital's life - either the guy accidentally witnesses a contract murder, then he himself is tried for a crime that he did not commit, then he falls into some very cinematic twists and turns - all the events that happen to him are so inconceivable that, it would seem, according to all the laws of the genre, they are mutually exclusive. A person cannot sit in prison and at the same time walk the streets and constantly run into some fantastic troubles. But there is one circumstance why this all happens to him. This circumstance is embedded in the drama of the documentary, and the answer can be obtained only by looking at the picture.
Best Actress: Natalia Pavlenkova
Natalia Pavlenkova was awarded the prize for Best Actress in the film Zoology by Ivan Tverdovsky. The film itself also received the prize of the Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics of Russia. Tverdovsky's painting is a fantasy in harmony with realism. No, perhaps not even with naturalism. Not too young, not too attractive and not too happy woman Natasha lives with her mother in a small county town. In the zoo where Natasha works, she has long been an object of ridicule, the only friends of Natalia Pavlenkova's heroine are animals. In short, her life is boring and absolutely joyless, they usually say about this: "This stability is like death." But suddenly a strange metamorphosis happens to her - for no reason, no reason, she grows a tail. Now Natasha has to go through shame and humiliation and, in the end, find herself.
Best Actor: Konstantin Khabensky
A look at the life of a collector from the inside is what director Alexei Krasovsky, together with Konstantin Khabensky, offers his viewer. The plot, in connection with the latest events, is quite topical: the collector, professional psychologist Arthur does not know the word “impossible”. He works exclusively with large debtors, while avoiding classical methods. No, no one will twist your hands and break your fingers, but after talking with him, you will want to go out the window. But one day Arthur himself becomes a target: a scandalous video with his participation appears on the network, and friends and colleagues instantly turn away from him.
A subtle psychological drama and, of course, the inimitable Khabensky, who knows how to merge with any role like no one else. So, the actor received the restitution prize not only deservedly, but also quite expectedly.
Best Screenplay and Special Jury Diploma: "Big Village Lights", Ilya Uchitel
Critics treat this picture kindly for one simple reason - "Big Village Lights", this is an absolutely spectator's movie. Such stories go: the projectionist Fyodor works in the old and long-to-be-closed Rodina cinema, and in his spare time he writes epic scripts in his notebook in the style of Twilight, popular among young people. In addition, according to all the laws of the genre, Fedor is in love, and of course, completely hopeless, and meanwhile the cinema is being prepared for the official and solemn closing. In general, such a light melodrama with all the ensuing consequences, which, by and large, has nothing to do with the festival cinema, however, against the background of other films from the “How Hard to Live” series, it looks advantageous and, most importantly, easy and unconstrained.
Kinotavr Main Prize, short film: "Credit", Vadim Valiullin
This year, about 400 films were sent to the short film competition, and only 26 of them were admitted to the festival. Among them was the work of Vadim Valiullin "Credit". And again, the plot is based on the money issue. He and she are young, beautiful and seem to be absolutely happy, so why not take an apartment on a mortgage? Here's the truth, then the wife is found to have an incurable disease, and the husband dies in a car accident. It turns out that the sum insured is sufficient to cover the mortgage in a lump sum.
The main criterion for choosing the winner was the originality of the plot. The jury considered that no one had ever told such stories from our screen. Well, it looks like Kinotavr this year passed under the sign of hyper-modernity: no love, only money and an unbearably difficult existence under any circumstances.
Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics Prize: "To the Countryside", Alexey Naumov
A graduate of higher courses in screenwriters and directors, director Alexei Naumov clearly sees the world's evil in women. At least, judging by his tapes, the problem lies in us, the fairer and fairer sex. A young couple goes to the dacha, she (like all, by the way, the heroines of Naumov) harasses the mattress and her husband's dullness with endless claims, dreams of all sorts of perversions in bed, flirts with a random man, in general, is the very type of women who are so afraid men and at the same time inexplicably love. The undeniable merit of the film lies in the fact that the plot develops, albeit orderly step by step, but completely unpredictable: the maniac climbs into the heroes' cottage, and suddenly he himself becomes a victim of a couple of psychopaths who, at the expense of the burglar, are going to solve their family problems …
Photo source: stills from movies
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