The “Dialogues in Cinema” award ceremony took place at the Ermolova Theater

The first cinematic award for the best dialogues in Russian films and TV series took place at the Ermolova Theater in Moscow. It was established this year on the initiative of the producer, director of the HSE Film Institute Alexander Akopov and the writer and screenwriter Alexander Tsypkin. Comments Julia Shagelman.

Opening the award ceremony, at which he also acted as a presenter, Mr. Tsypkin called it a home party. The atmosphere was truly relaxed, which was not prevented even by the sound and light overlays, which delayed the ceremonial part for almost forty-five minutes. However, its solemnity was rather conventional: no tuxedos or evening dresses, minimalistic stage design. And the awards were interspersed with musical numbers performed by a chamber orchestra and dialogues read out by theater actors in their roles – however, both the music and the texts were not from the nominated films and TV series, but from Hollywood ones like “Pulp Fiction”, “Spider-Man” ” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

In informal friendly communication, the award itself was born: its idea arose among the future founders when they realized how underestimated screenwriters were by the general public.

It was decided to support the workers of the cinematic pen and, in the words of Alexander Tsypkin, “turn them into rock stars” with the help of a new award – not just a screenplay award, but with an emphasis on dialogue, because it is they who, as a rule, diverge into catchphrases and turn into memes.

This year, films and TV series released in theaters or on online platforms from September 1, 2022 to September 1, 2023 were eligible for awards. The submitted applications were reviewed by a selection committee headed by film critic Yegor Moskvitin, who compiled short lists of nominees. And from among them the jury chose its favorites, the chairman of which was Mr. Akopov himself, and it included journalist Alena Doletskaya, actor and TV presenter Nikolai Fomenko, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor Tatyana Chernigovskaya, comedian and TV presenter Evgeny Chebatkov and writer Sergei Minaev.

Judging by the number of applicants, things are going well with scripts in Russian films and TV series, even if the audience sometimes gets a completely different impression: in seven nominations there were seven of them (even more than usually happens at the Oscars or Emmys), and only in “best dialogue in a short film” – five. There was also online audience voting on the VKontakte network – its winner was the script team (Alexei Akimov, Olga Simonova, Konstantin Garbuzov, Dmitry Shepelevich and Roman Borodavkin) of the most popular series “Vampires of the Middle Zone”, which over its two seasons managed to become an integral part of Russian pop culture.

Another viewer favorite is the nostalgic series “World! Friendship! Gum!” about a group of teenagers from the 1990s who grew up over three seasons. The jury awarded its screenwriters Pyotr Vnukov, Sergei Panasenkov and Oleg Rashidov for “best comedy dialogue” — the skillful use of humor even in the most serious situations is truly the hallmark of this project.

Prize for “best dramatic dialogue” co-authors of the film’s script were awarded “Don’t bury me without Ivan” Yulia Klimenko and Lyubov Borisova (she also became the director of the film). It turned out to be symbolic in its own way, since the content of this picture is precisely the dialogue of peoples and cultures represented by the Russian artist and ethnographer of the early twentieth century Ivan Popov and the Yakut peasant Stepan Beresekov, and they speak two languages ​​in it.

Prize for “best dialogue in a feature film” received Roman Mikhailov for the painting “Snow, Sister and Wolverine”. He can rightfully be called a rock star of Russian cinema in recent years. Having started making films based on his own scripts in 2021, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, philosopher and professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences has already released five of them (the premiere of the sixth should take place next week at the Winter festival) and has established himself as an unpredictable author and unlike anyone else , creator of his own phantasmagoric cinematic universe.

By “best dialogue in a short film” the jury chose Pavel Korolko, who had already received the award for best director at the Koroche festival for his film “Here and Now”. In this sketch of four friends pushing a stalled car and bickering to the accompaniment of news reports, he managed to capture and capture the unique moment in time that the country is living now.

Winner in the nomination “Best dialogue in the series” became Andrey Zolotarov for the show “13th Clinical” – a hybrid of a medical procedural and a mystical thriller about a terminally ill doctor working in an unusual hospital. Here they do not cut out appendicitis, but exorcise demons, and fight not with a seasonal flu epidemic, but with supernatural forces. The screenwriter supplied this gloomy concept with a considerable dose of humor, creating one of the most original series among the products of domestic streaming services.

However, the award has nomination for adapted screenplays, including both films and streaming shows— the best in it were Ilya Tilkin and Alexander Gryazin, who wrote the script for the series “Librarian” based on the novel “The Librarian” by Mikhail Elizarov.

Despite (or because of) the charming informality, the first awards ceremony for the new prize was in many ways like the proverbial pancake.

However, its creators, apparently, are full of optimism: this is also confirmed by the fact that the prize for best debut went to Andrei Ivanov’s not yet filmed script “Dead Coal”. Perhaps there are other texts stored somewhere that have the potential to be turned into films and TV series, and therefore to win future awards.