Dovzhenko Prize has been unanimously awarded to Bohdan Stupka

Oleksandr Dovzhenko State Prize award ceremony was held on the occasion of the Ukrainian Cinema Day at the premises of the National Film Studio named after the legendary director on Dovzhenko’s birthday, September 12. This year’s 100,000-hryvnia prize has been posthumously awarded to an outstanding actor, the artistic director of Franko National Theater Bohdan Stupka after an unprecedented unanimous decision by the prize committee members. Strangely, the great master never received a Ukrainian film award when he was still living! Minister of Culture of Ukraine Mykhailo Kulyniak presented the award to Stupka’s widow Larysa. The ceremony was also attended by the actor’s grandson Dmytro and daughter-in-law Iryna (his son Ostap is now starring abroad). The Chairman of the National Union of Ukrainian Cinematographers (NUUC) (he doubles as the Chairman of the Dovzhenko State Prize Committee) Serhii Trymbach said in his address:

“This event brings together two great artists, Dovzhenko and Stupka. The latter always stressed that he was an heir to the traditions of the Kurbas theater since his teacher in Lviv had been Borys Tiahno, an actor from the Kurbas company. Let me remind you that all of Dovzhenko’s early films starred Berezil theater actors. Thus, both artists were kind of branches of the same tree, and both worked at the Kyiv Film Studio. Hopefully, the Dovzhenko National Film Studio will recover and even outgrow its former levels of production in the coming years. Otherwise, there will be no real film industry in Ukraine!”

The celebration at the Dovzhenko studio involved also presenting awards For Many Years of Fruitful Work in the Field of Culture to filmmakers Mykhailo Illienko, Valentyn Vasianovych, Myroslav Slaboshpytsky as well as cinema historian and the NUUC Chairman Serhii Trymbach.