The Grand Prix of the International Film Festival “Mirror” received Indian cinema: the choice surprised

And director Anatoly Vasilyev preferred the picture without songs and dances, which were so loved in the USSR

In Ivanovo ended the 17th International Film Festival “Mirror” them. Andrei Tarkovsky. The final ceremony took place in the constructivist building of the railway station, built in 1933. A cinema hall was equipped there and during the week a retrospective was shown from the film in honor of the upcoming 80th anniversary of the birth of Oleg Yankovsky.

The Grand Prix was awarded to the Indian film Shivamma by Jaishankar Aryar. The jury included Russian actress Olga Lapshina, Azerbaijani director Fariz Akhmedov, Kazakh director Darezhan Omirbayev. And the panel of judges was headed by the outstanding theater director and creator of the School of Dramatic Art theater Anatoly Vasiliev. The laureate was not present at the ceremony, as well as other winners of the international competition, but said words of gratitude from the screen.

The winning film surprised many. Very young people do not know Indian cinema at all, since it is not in our box office. The older generation, who grew up on Bollywood hits, remembers the riot of colors, songs and dances typical of the cinema of this country, its tearful stories. But now they are filming a great auteur movie. At the main world festivals, it is still a rare guest, but in Rotterdam and the Korean Busan it is richly represented.

Jaishankar Aryar is a film director and IT engineer from Bangalore, India. Shivamma is his feature-length debut about a woman who lives on the outskirts of a picturesque, poverty-stricken city with her bedridden husband and two children. She sells an energy drink to make ends meet. Her life is so exotic for us that you can watch her endlessly. Apparently, the meditativeness of what is happening on the screen made a strong impression on the jury.

The other two awards went to films about the life of migrants. For directing, Fremont was awarded to London-based Iranian director and BAFTA nominee Babak Jalali. His paintings have participated in festivals in Locarno and Rotterdam (Radio Dreams won the main Tiger Award). Filmed in the US, Fremont had its world premiere at the US Sundance Film Festival. The main character – she was played by the beautiful young actress Anaita Vali Zada ​​- came to the United States from Afghanistan, where she worked as a translator in the US Army. Having miraculously received an American visa (her colleagues were killed), she masters life in a foreign country. The picture is made minimalistically, tenderly and uplifting, as few people manage to do at all, especially when talking about the hardships of migrants.

The special prize was awarded to the Georgian film “Brighton 4” by Levan Koguashvili, which Nadezhda Mikhalkova, who played a small role of an immigrant, came to Ivanovo for one day to present. Levan is a graduate of VGIK, studied in the workshop of Marlen Khutsiev, once came to the Moscow International Film Festival and met with his teacher, as it turned out, for the last time. Koguashvili also graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he studied with the once-Soviet director Boris Frumin. Together they wrote the script for “Brighton 4” about a Georgian ex-champion who came to New York to live with his unlucky son. Together with him, viewers find themselves in Brighton Beach among Georgian, Russian and Central Asian immigrants. Levan knows how to create a unique atmosphere in the cinema, and this is the main charm of his films.

Young people representing independent telegram channels gave their preference to Nisha by Anton Yermolin, a recent graduate of Alexei Uchitel’s workshop. This is a bold and talented picture of modern Russian life, which explains a lot in it from the point of view of young people.

The audience prize went to Natalya Meshchaninova, who presented a picture of rare courage and sincerity “One Little Night Secret” in the program of Russian auteur cinema. The world premiere took place at the recent Rotterdam Film Festival, which was a breakthrough, since the road to the world open spaces is closed to our cinema. And then there was silence: no rental, no online platforms. The fear of the overly complex topic of domestic violence is evident. And the Ivanovo spectators were shocked by what they saw, they approached Natalya to say important words and share their secrets.

The special prize “For Andrei Tarkovsky’s contribution to the cinema” was awarded to director Yevgeny Tsymbal, who worked on the Stalker and wrote priceless memoirs about it. Master Andrey Smirnov, who presented his new film “For Us with You” about the life of a Soviet family on the eve of Stalin’s death, was noted for his outstanding contribution to cinematography. Prize to them. Alexander Kaidanovsky, awarded by the festival management to the best actors and directors, went to film director Yuri Bykov, and this was an unexpected decision in the context of “Mirror”. The award was presented by Anatoly Vasiliev himself, which significantly added weight to her.

The festival ended with the screening of Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May.