The winners have been announced at the Artdocfest documentary film festival in Riga. Festival organizers told Meduza that the film “Memory” by director Vladelina Sandu won the best film award at the festival.
“Vladelina Sandu, who lives in Amsterdam, has made an autofiction film about her imaginary pains in her past life – a piercing cinematic ode to childhood, youth and fate, which took place on the skating rink of the Chechen war. After an idyllic Crimea, the young heroine finds herself in the burning of Grozny, at the epicenter of violence. Girls close to her become its victims, and she herself is traumatized. The film, which took eight years to complete, seems to be woven from “bright flashes of consciousness Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival,” said festival president and documentary director Vitaly Mansky about the film.
The directing award was received by Kyrgyz directors Alimana Toktogolova and Karash Janishov for the film “Dogs.”
The Special Jury Prize was awarded to the film “2000 Meters to Andreevka” by Ukrainian director Mstislav Chernov. “Winter in March” by Natalia Mirzoyan and “Together Forever” by Anastasia Miroshnichenko received special mentions from the jury.
The winner of the Baltic Focus competition program was Sarunas Bartas’s film Laguna. Natalia Konyag won the Best Director award for “Silver,” and the HERZ Special Award went to “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin.