Afilm of a famous film director, a people’s artist of Russia Stanislav Govorukhin “The Artist” opened “Listapad”. The films of this professional are talented: there are no fantastic in them. Histories in the basis of scripts, which the stage director works at, are, so to say, true-life, that is why they excite us. Clever cinema — this is how I would define the art of Stanislav Govorukhin. In this, so to say, charger, I would include “The Artist” — his latest film. This is a film about female destiny, about expectation of personal happiness, it is shot with taste, which differs by fine understanding of female psychology.
— I pity that I didn’t send “The Artist” to a contest program of “Listapad”, I like that the viewers define a prize. It is special in Belarus. On the whole, I like Belarus, Minsk and …“Listapad” very much. It is easy to breath here, — said the stage-director while representing his film.
What did the viewer experience during seven days watching contest films of “Listapad”? As it often happens at the festivals of such a scale, festival feelings prevailed.
So, about viewers’ feelings and mood. In my opinion, a feeling of gratitude prevailed. I generated it to the address of everybody who supports and continues this annual tradition, providing possibility to see new contemporary cinema. With the help of it we have an impression not only on the level of the world cinema art and its tendencies, but also on mentality of different peoples, the Estonians, the Swedes, the British, the Germans, get acquainted with their lifestyle and traditions. A contest South-Korean “Secret sunlight” presented us this possibility. How people think in this faraway exotic country, how they love, suffer, what they prefer and in what conditions they live — tells a film of the stage-director Lee Chan-Don with a brilliant actress Djon Do Yon. A film got a prize of the President of Belarus “For humanity and spirituality in the cinema”.
It would be strange if one separate film would be unconditionally accepted with a bang: there are so many viewers, tastes and predilections — some people go to the cinema to have fun, the others — to experience a shock. I even heard a negative recall from one elderly woman-critic to the address of the “golden” prize-winner of the festival, a film “The life of the others” (a debut of the stage-director and script writer Florian Henkel Donnersmark, Germany, in feature-length cinema), that she doesn’t believe in high day of the German cinema. And I am still deeply impressed by the film, one-piece as a monolith: all episodes are “sewed” so strongly in it and the roles are played faultlessly. Besides, the highest point of the jury and the viewers’ sympathy to the German film was the same, this happens extremely rarely and cinema professionals were surprised with this.
Almost each contest film in the final moment of titles’ movement on the screen was accompanied with applause: a Belarusian viewer can take in guests, I made sure of it at the International theatrical festival “Panorama”.
A Swedish stage-director of the feature film “Nina’s journey” Lena Einhorn said before the beginning of the film: “I am astonished with the fact how friendly and gratefully your people, especially the youth, react on the festival films”. A film about the Second World War with the use of documentary newsreel Lena Einhorn dedicated to her mother. After it I exchanged opinions with my colleague about horrors of Warsaw ghetto and about Holocaust… And a resume was as follows: yes, we can understand those that repeat from time to time: if only there would be no war.
I heard this phrase going out of the hall of the cinema “Oktiabr”, where all the contest films were demonstrated, and after a “military” film of Maria Mazhar “Enemies”. “Probably, veterans were invited for an overview…”, — I thought. It turned out to be like this. Veterans also watched the film “Chaklun and Rumba” of the Belarusian stage-director Andrey Golubev. These films occupied the fourth and the fifth lines correspondingly in the rating of the viewers’ sympathy. And a Belarusian-Russian film “Enemies” got a special diploma “For adhesion to traditions and intention to solve the topic of the Great Patriotic War in a new way” and a special prize of the Permanent committee of the Federal government.
There were other prizes, the dignified were not skirted by attention …
The festival ended, but the feelings, which it touched upon, are still alive.
Valentina Zhdanovich
