Kazan Film Festival-2016: ‘Immortal’ among the films
The Kazan International Muslim Film Festival that is held in the capital of Tatarstan for the twelfth time finished on 11 September. The correspondent of Realnoe Vremya, having visited the closing ceremony, found out why Nonna Grishaeva was invited, which film has received most prizes and where the main prize of the festival left.
Cinema in the Opera Theatre
The closing ceremony was held in the hall of the Tatar Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after M. Jalil. The traditional red carpet was spread out parallel to the building facade. Obviously, the purpose of the most flashy Kazan hall was to emphasise the status of the event.
The award ceremony was well-organised. In general, the performance of the State Song and Dance Ensemble of the RT, the Kazan ensemble and a medley that was performed by the young 'stars' of the Tatar stage, based on songs from the movies, looked quite organically. No doubt, the ceremony was graced by the Ready-to-Wear fashion show from the Kazan designer working in Muslim traditions Zarina Babadzhanova.
The presenters of the opening ceremony were an actress Nonna Grishaeva and a Tatarstan singer Ruzil Gatin – also cute and intelligent. It should be noted that this year we are lucky with the presenters of the opening and the closing ceremonies. As for Nonna Grishaeva, her appearance at the Muslim Film Festival was completely reasonable and appropriate. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the Professor of the Kazan Theological Academy, a famous Islamic studies scholar, who was the first who translated the Quran. By the way, Grishaeva was wearing a golden floor-length gown from Zarina Babadzhanova.
From the officials at the closing ceremony of the festival there was the Vice Prime Minister of Tatarstan Vasil Shakhraziev. He thanked the jury members and the participants in the festival for the work that they have done.
The ceremony began with the awarding of special prizes. Vasil Shakhraziev handed over the first special prize of the president of RT 'For the humanism in the cinematography'. The prize was awarded for the film of the Malaysian cinematographers 'Redha'. By the way, he has received the largest number of prizes. The ensemble of actors playing in 'Redha' won the prize for the best male role, the film was awarded the prize of the Russian film critics' guild for the universal view on family values.
In addition to 'Redha', the Russian film critics' guild awarded with diplomas the other two films – the Russian film 'Madman's Conspiracy' and the Syrian film 'Jasmine'. The latter was marked by the touching words 'For the poetic embodiment of the faith of a child in the world without war.'
The special prize of the mayor of Kazan went to the film of the Kazan director Renat Khabibullin 'The Mardjany Mosque, the story of embodied traditions'. For the first time, the prize has been established by the Union of Cinematographers of Tatarstan. Awarding it, the director Ildar Yagofarov expressed hope that this award would become a tradition. This prize was awarded to a man, whose right to the award surely would not be doubted by anyone. It was Tatarstan's first professional film critic Robert Koposov, on whose reviews and TV programs grew more than one generation of fans of Kazan.
The best documentary feature film was the film by an Iranian filmmaker 'I want to be a king'. Two best short documentary films – the film from Kyrgyzstan 'Ata Beyit' and the film of a young Kazan director Ruslan Valeyev 'Z/K'.
The film of Serbian filmmakers, who were considered to be the favourites of the festival, 'No One's Child', did not receive the main prize but was awarded for the best screenplay. The best director was a director of Yakutia Sergey Potapov, submitting to the jury the film 'Dyesegoy Numen'.
The films that were shown in the category Young Russia were also awarded. Here there were two winners – the film by Kirill Pletnev 'Mother' and Andrey Noskov 'Personal matter'.
Presenting the award for best film, a jury chairperson Aleksander Proshkin made a pause. 'We always used to watch the films together with the audience to feel the breath of the hall and we merged with the feelings with them. I want to thank the chairperson of the selection committee Sergey Lavrentyev and his team for the remarkable selection of films. The festival's program is a very strong, many film festivals would envy this program. We had a problem — to choose the best film of the festival, it was supposed to be an absolute masterpiece. And we found this masterpiece,' Proshkin intrigued.
And then he announced the winner of the festival. It is the film 'Immortal' by Iranian filmmakers. 'Immortal' also received the prize for best camera work.
