The first awards of the XXI Film Festival «Spirit of Fire» were presented at the opening ceremony in the “Yugra-Classic» hall – to both the youngest participants of the competition programs and the nation-wide favorite master of the stage and the screen. The People’s Artist of Russia, chairman of the international competition jury Pavel Lungin took the stage to present the award «For contribution to cinema development».
«We give this award to a man of high karat gold – Sergey Garmash,» announced Pavel Lungin, making a proud mention that Garmash had recently starred in his film.
“I am grateful to the city for this award. I wish that both people who come to watch films and people who send their films to be watched continue to love films and to prove the greatness of Russian cinema,” said Sergei Garmash, receiving the award.
The festival Vice President Maria Zvereva took the stage to present the awards for the festival first-timers. She welcomed guests, spectators and participants:
«The festival has started its third decade, and for more than two decades I’ve been going on this stage to open it. I look into the audience now and think that some of our guests were born 21 year ago – and now they are our spectators, and those Yugorian people who are over 30 years old, hopefully, used to watch our children’s program when they were kids – so they are the spectators who are ready to watch films differently. In a sense, they are the festival’s children. I, so to speak, serve as a bridge between the past and the future, and I would like to award the future now. Our most recent debut is the super short film competition. We introduced it recently, and it features films no longer than three minutes, made by authors over 12 years old with a phone, an amateur camera, and the like”.
The winner in the special category for children was «The Legend of Biya and Katun» (by Eva Esinovskaya and Vlad Skripnikov from the children animation studio «12 Frames», taught by Natalya Skripnikova, Moscow). The winner according to the online poll results was the film «Freaky Tales» by Yulia Sukhatskaya and Alexander Turgachev (Khanty-Mansiysk). In the special children’s category, as a result of the online poll, the winner was the film «Why Owls Hunt Mice” (by Sofia Didukh, Savva Stepanov and Nikita Efimov from the Creative Industries School of the District House of Folk Art, Animation and 3D Graphics Studio, taught by Ilya Samotesov, Khanty-Mansiysk). The Grand Prix of the super short film competition «Indigenous Peoples of the World» was awarded to Dmitry Prishvitsyn (Khanty-Mansiysk) for his film “The Boy Ide».
The results of an art competition “The symbol of fire in the traditions and tales of the indigenous peoples of the world» were also announced at the ceremony. The winner was Victoria Tsatsina, an artist from Samara, with her work “The Fire Shaman”. The painting became the symbolic image of the XXI Spirit of Fire film festival.
