29 September 2001
Belarusian film festival concludes in Brest with no film winning main award
The Third National Belarusian Film Festival concluded in Brest on September 26 with no film winning the main "Crystal Stork" award for the "Best Presentation of a National Theme." The jury led by Lithuanian film director Gytis Luksas also failed to select a nominee worthy of the Best Actress award.
Fourteen feature films, seven animated films and 25 documentaries were shown during the five-day event. "In August 1944" directed by Mikhail Ptashuk snagged three Crystal Storks for Best Feature Film, Best Actor (Yevgeny Mironov) and Best Sound (sound engineer Sergei Chuprov). Irina Kodyukova of the Belarusfilm studios, the author of
"Wonderful Christmas Eve Dinner," took home the Best Animated Film award. "Andrew's Stones" by Viktor Aslyuk of Letapis won the award for Best Documentary; "Neboga" (Atheist) by Larisa Kabernik of the Belarusian Video Center received Crystal Stork for Best Student Film.
The Best Director award went to Nadezhda Gorkunova of Telefilm for "The Unplayed Role." Aleksandr Vereshchagin of Belarusfilm won the Best Animation award for his cartoon "The Christmas Tale." Dmitry Zaitsev of Telefilm took home the Brest Photographer award for "Water Eyes." Despite financial difficulties that complicated the organization of this year's festival, Gennady Mosko, chairman of the Brest City Executive Committee, promised that the next biannual national film festival would be held in Brest in 2003. The organizers originally planned to hold the event in various regional centers, but the Brest authorities would like their city to host the festival every time.
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news66.html