Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Zhanna Ozirna’s Honeymoon were among the winners at the 53rd Molodist Kyiv International Film Festiv
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Zhanna Ozirna’s Honeymoon were among the winners at the 53rd Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival in Ukraine.
Kapadia’s film won the Scythian Deer – the festival trophy – for Best Full-Length Film in the International Competition, with a $2,000 cash prize from the Yuliia Ihnatchenko Charitable Fund.
Scroll down for the festival’s feature winners
It was selected by a jury headed by Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, alongside filmmaker Marija Kavtaradze, producer Maksym Asadchiy, actress Anastasiia Karpenko and film scholar Albert Widerspiel.
The film debuted in Competition at Cannes this year, where it won the Grand Prix.
Zhanna Ozirna’s Ukrainian feature Honeymoon took the Kyiv Grand Prix, with $5,000 cash prize. Set at the beginning of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, it follows a couple trapped in their apartment near Kyiv as their country falls under attack. It played in the Biennale College Cinema strand at Venice Film Festival this year; Rasoulof described it as “a piercing, sensitive love story set against the backdrop of haunting explosions.”
Further awards included a special mention in the International Competition to Bogdan Muresanu’s Romanian debut The New Year That Never Came; the Documentary Competition prize to Adelina Borets’ Flowers of Ukraine; and an audience award to Marcos Pimentel’s Brazilian feature Oysters Silence, which had its world premiere in Kyiv.
The festival presented its awards on Saturday, November 2, before closing with Damian Kocur’s Under The Volcano.
The 2024 festival was the second full edition to take place since the beginning of the ongoing Russian invasion.
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival 2024 winners
International Competition
Best Full-Length Film – All We Imagine As Light (Fr-Ind-Neth-Lux) dir. Payal Kapadia
Special mention – The New Year That Never Came (Rom-Ser) dir. Bogdan Muresanu
Audience award – Oysters Silence (Braz) dir. Marcos Pimentel
Documentary competition
Best Film – Flowers of Ukraine (Pol-Ukr) dir. Adelina Borets
Special mentions – Tack (Gr) dir. Vania Turner; What Did You Dream Of Last Night, Parajanov? (Ger) dir. Faraz Fesharaki
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