Youth Grows Up
The closing ceremony of the 31st Molodist (Youth) International Film Festival was graphic evidence of Ukraine’s only such forum’s growing prestige. It is primarily manifest in the size of the audience, as this time almost every show threatened to burst the doors, and the closing day saw the Ukraine Palace jammed, despite its voluminous seating capacity. This is explained not only by the hunger for quality films, but also by the well-planned and professionally staged promotional campaign that asserted Molodist’s presence in the Ukrainian information space long before the festival began. The result was a total attendance of 104,000.
And the quality has come considerably closer to the European standard, except for some reshuffling and lapses in the program. Every show began on time. The full-length picture nomination was marked by diversity: 16 films from Eastern and Western Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. In the hors concours division one could watch European and US productions winning most prestigious awards in recent years.
Last but not least, the festival status registered a noticeable increase, and this was clearly apparent during the closing ceremony. Practically every prize was presented by a noted creative personality like Russian star Sergei Makovetsky, celebrated European film directors Jos Stelling, and Ettore Scola. In fact, the presence of distinguished Russian and Western European filmmakers among the guests was also an attainment of the several past years.
As usual, awarding prizes caused debate and the jury headed by the prominent Georgian film director Nana Dzhordzhadze was a priori assigned the thankless role of leaving out of the award lists some that really deserved them, which, of course, caused hurt feelings. Yet conferring the Yves Montand the prize for best actor was practically unanimous. The prize worth 5,000 francs was shared by Debora Duboc and Claudio Jaborandi for their brilliant roles in Zero Altitude (Brazil). A centenarian grandfather in the German student production How Time Flies was unmatched in that nomination. The Ukrainian Bright Personality (directed by Oleh Pedan) was the best in the short nomination and the French-Israeli melodrama Late Marriage (Dover Kasashvili) won in the full-length division. The Grand Prix, the Scythian Roe, went to the Polish half-hour film Man’s Business about difficult childhood. Its director Stawomir Fabicki will receive it and the consolation prize, but it in Poland. He shares the Roe with his French counterpart Martin le Gaulle and his short The Diva and the Pianist. Thus the short nomination took the lead again, which is not surprising, since no one has as yet made a prize-winning feature debut.
Starting in this year, Molodist seems to have embarked on a more official road and a better definition of its priorities. The goal set by Andrei Khalpakhchi, et al., has been practically attained. Molodist is indeed a separate and noticeable point on the map of European culture. In other words, this international festival’s qualitative transformation is now irreversible. What is left is adding to the quantitative parameters, adding even more cinephile joy to the Kyiv autumnal atmosphere. This is a rewarding effort.
