#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Rodina cinema complex has summed up the results of the all-Russian open festival-competition of audiovisual arts Polar Owl. This year, 438 works were sent to the jury, including animated films, feature films and documentaries, as well as social videos.
Every year, the festival not only evaluates the submitted children’s works in a number of nominations, but also holds meetings between city residents and masters of film and video art.
This year, the Ekran animation studio of the Rodina cinema complex hosted a number of master classes: from the creators of Smeshariki and Finnik, Denis Chernov and Tatyana Belova, as well as Norilsk resident Nikolay Nadezhin, the head of the city’s first comics and manga studio. In Rodina itself, viewers were offered the cartoon Koschei: The Bride Kidnapper and a meeting with the director, animator, and screenwriter Sergey Antonov, as well as the film Choice and a conversation with Alexander Kalashnikov, the Krasnoyarsk film studio director and the Russia Cinematographers Union’s Krasnoyarsk branch’s chairman, which followed the screening.
An obligatory part of the festival is the selection of the best works in the field of audiovisual art from children and teenagers sent from all over the country and neighboring countries. This year, 438 works were sent to the competition. A professional jury determined the winners in each of the four categories. Also, the school No. 23 students acted as a children’s jury, awarding the audience sympathy prize.
Based on the jury’s results, this year the Grand Prix of the all-Russian open festival-competition of audiovisual arts and the statuette will go to Narva (Estonia), to the creators of the animated film The Task Will Be Done from the Rovesnik film studio.
The special prize named after Isaac Magiton for the documentary film The Champion Path was won by the guys from the Leningrad region (the Shkval film and TV studio).
The special prize named after Sergey Seregin went to the Novosibirsk children’s film studio Poisk for the animated film Zhivonty.
The jury also awarded special diplomas – for documentary in animation, plasticity of image, humanity and truth of life, charm of characters and even the ability to be friends.
And the audience award went to the animated film Gnome and Star (the Vzhik animation studio, school No. 74 named after G.I. Mushnikov, Ufa).
The full list of winners, as well as the best works creators’ names, are presented in Rodina’s social networks.
Unfortunately, the Norilsk residents were left without awards this year. The jury chairman, Alexander Kalashnikov, noted that they lack the skill to compete on equal terms with works from other regions of the country or the CIS countries:
“I have been participating in the festival for 13 years now – first as deputy chairman, then as chairman. I see that Polar Owl is developing. I remember the times when no more than 100 works were sent. Today, both the number of videos sent and their quality have grown. It is really very decent. I think that the opening of creative classes of animation studios at additional education institutions and schools in different regions helps. Both feature films and documentaries, cartoons are good, and the social videos are very smart. And these are children’s works! Yes, of course, in each case the children worked under the teachers’ guidance, but still. Looking at them, you get pleasure”.
He noted how traditionally good the works from Lugansk were, and wonderful videos were sent from Estonia, Kazakhstan, and a number of Russia’s regions.
“There were works that were rated the highest on each point by each member of the jury. Many of them showed good work with the presenters: I would like Norilsk, where the children’s studio also operates, to catch up. The children began to make feature films about events at school, and not in the style of Yeralash” as before, but thoughtful, well-thought-out works with good acting. In one of the videos, we were so pleased with the young actress that we even gave her a special prize. We were amazed by the documentary work of the guys from Irkutsk about Agniya Barto – even we, people who have been working in cinema for a long time, were surprised to learn something new about the life of the poetess”, Alexander Kalashnikov shared.
He added that next year the Polar Owl festival will change its operating principle and will go ‘to the people’:
“We will come to Norilsk schools, talk to the kids, show films, videos of their peers, that is, teach them to watch films, just as children are taught to read books. This is part of the so-called media education. And three months before the festival, there is an idea to launch an online school, where we will teach all interested children how to develop scripts, conduct filming – in a word, all the intricacies of creating a film product in the field of animation, as well as feature and documentary films. By the festival’s start, we will complete the training and see what works the online school students can present to us. After all, many children have great ideas, they just lack experience and skill. We hope that our school will help them start in the chosen direction”.
Earlier, This Is Taimyr wrote about the cultural event start.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Maria Sokolova, Photo: provided by the Rodina cinema complex
