“TEFI”-2023: the battle of modern and retro, the triumph of Matveev and Smolyakov

After a four-year break, the main competition of the TEFI Award returns to the life of the local television community with the finale in the form of a large ceremony organized by the Academy of Russian Television Foundation. Programs and series released within a year and a half after January 1, 2022 were eligible for the competition, and among them were more than a thousand projects of various genres. “MK” took a closer look at some of the ceremony’s headliners.

Distributing awards in fifty-three competitive categories is a task that can hardly be accomplished in one evening, so on December 7th the best entertainment projects were celebrated, and the next day the celebration of informational and socio-political ones is planned. And if with the latter everything is basically clear, because they do not cover too many topics, then television entertainment of the 2022-23 type was intriguing just because they exist at all.

In addition, the producers of television entertainment for the most part live in the status of bohemians, which means that the combination of the interiors of the Maly Theater, elegant clothes and sparkling wine already promised frivolous social fuss, friendly kisses and non-binding compliments.

This is how it turned out in the end. A very motley group gathered in the foyer of the theater, in which the legends Anna Shatilova and Tatyana Sudets, the giants Vladimir Pozner and Dmitry Dibrov, as well as the relative youth Lera Kudryavtseva and Timur Rodriguez were much closer to each other than can be imagined based on their affiliation with completely to different generations.

The TEFI Award has always been a target for a variety of reproaches, but the fact that a project or character had this statuette invariably meant a move to another league. It’s not entirely clear how the participants of the Comedy Club (the project was again noted, this time in the category “Prime Time Entertaining Star Show”) can continue to spew out their jokes to the rank of almost classics of the genre, but the comedians still follow the informal line. True, Pavel Volya’s award speech was more reminiscent not of a stand-up comedy, but of a routine set of thanks from a helpful manager, although perhaps not everyone understood the depth of humor.

The secular perseverance of Lera Kudryavtseva and all the creators of “The Secret to a Million” finally received an award. There is hardly a consensus on this program. For some, “The Secret” is a collection of gossip and attempts to settle scores with exes, while others are sure that the show of star revelations at fixed prices is quite akin to a full-fledged psychological practice in rethinking the experience and developing the prospect of rediscovering oneself as a person. Fortunately, Lera, who received the prize, remained not very serious. She threw herself on the neck of Igor Krutoy, who was presenting the award (he was at one time the first hero of her show) and recruited a couple of new clients in the hall.

The triumph of “Clever Men and Smart Men” in the “Program for Children” category may look like the reluctance of academics to look for new projects, but this in no way diminishes the quality (especially against the backdrop of some new projects) of Yuri Vyazemsky’s brainchild. The victory of the show “Ural Dumplings” as the best humorous program smacks of an eerie retrograde, although, let’s be honest, in humor it is quite difficult to draw a clear line between “cool” and “sucks.”

Nikolai Tsiskaridze, after taking over as host of the “Tonight” program, could read a lot of reproaches about the fact that this chair was for him at all, but with “TEFI” in the “Entertainment Talk Show Host” category, he can take criticism even more calmly. The same should be said about Yana Churikova.

Replacing Nagiyev in “The Voice” is a desperate trick rather than a dangerous one, but now Yana has support in the form of a weighty trophy for the children’s format of a successful project as a result of voting by academics in the “Host of a Prime Time Entertainment Show” category.

In the series nominations, an exciting struggle could unfold between private historical series and modernism. It turned around, but ended quickly. Retro has won, which does not negate the rather striking manifestations of modernity. And in this case, Maxim Matveev played a big role.

It would be right to note him as the actor who became the driving force behind the TV series “Trigger,” the second season of which won in several categories. The project was noted for the best script (Andrey Zolotarev, one of the script’s authors, before the ceremony, received a wave of compliments for his other project, “The Boy’s Word. Blood on the Asphalt,” and if this youth action movie does not win next year, then the academicians can be blamed for deafness and blindness), as well as in the “Dramatic Series” category. Maxim himself received the award for best actor in a drama series.

However, the main character of the ceremony was Andrei Smolyakov, who is directly related to the hype around the series “Axe. 1945. Koenigsberg” and the eighth season of “Mosgaz”. Both projects swept through many nominations and won awards for their creators. “Axe. 1945. Koenigsberg” became the best mini-series and brought victory to Smolyakov in one of the acting categories, and “Mosgaz. Case No. 8. Trap” was named the best serial detective.

Two sweeping biopics about Faina Ranevskaya and Fyodor Chaliapin also did not go unnoticed. Both “Ranevskaya” (named the best historical series) and “Chaliapin” (won in the producer category) caused a lot of controversy and doubts about the correctness of the presentation of the biography of famous cultural figures. And if some storylines really raise doubts, then the victory of Marietta Tsigal-Polishchuk as an “actress of a historical series” for the role of Faina Ranevskaya seems to be a very logical choice.

The third season of the retro detective story “The Code” and the drama “Nobody Will Know” were the last film works of Sergei Puskepalis and Evgenia Brik. Both projects hardly claim to be resonant, but it was very important to note the performance of departed artists in them. And the audience greeted the choice of academicians with a standing ovation.