Cinematography happiness for Ukraine

Sochi’s Winter Theater prizewinners of the 21st Open Russian festival “Kinotavr” were announced on June 14. Many will be delighted to hear that the Ukrainian-German-Dutch movie My Happiness was among the main prizewinners; it was created by Serhii Loznytsia, documentary director who lived for a long time in Kyiv and chose Ukraine to shoot his live-action movie debut. Serhii was distinguished as the best director of the festival, and the particularly severe in evaluation community of movie critics and press gave its special “White Elephant” prize to him. Thus, after being selected to the main competition in Cannes (a reward by itself), this is one more success of Ukrainian cinema.

The main prize of the festival was given to director Svitlana Proskurina and producer Sabina Yeremeyeva for the movie The Truce. The prize for the best male role was given to actor Ivan Dobronravov, who plays the leading role in The Truce. Mariya Zvonariova (A Man at the Window, director Dmitri Meskhiev) was selected in the best actress nomination. Anna Fenchenko (Gone without a Trace) was picked as the best debut. The prize for filming was given to Roman Vasyanov, who shot the movie by Alexandr Lungin and Sergei Osepyan Natural Phenomenon with a photo camera.

At the end, the festival’s president Aleksandr Rodniansky handed the prize “For the priceless contribution” over to Irina Motyl; this is a posthumous prize to her father, director Vladimir Motyl, whose last movie The Purple Color of Snowfall closed the festival.

Please read a review of the movie My Happiness and interview with Serhii Loznytsia in the upcoming issues of The Day.