Editor-in-chief of KinoReporter magazine, member of the Golden Eagle National Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Russia, shared her thoughts on the ceremony.
You can treat prizes and festival awards differently. Their owners can wake up famous, and after some time be forgotten: in the cinema, the effect of yesterday's merit is short-lived. But every significant award has two meanings - pragmatic and historical.
In the first case, we are not even talking about the financial component of the award, but about a change in status, which entails a sharp increase in demand, an increase in the fee rate, and so on. But more important, of course, is something else. Remember any broadcast of the Oscar ceremony: the emotional performances of the winners, tears, thanks to parents and friends. And this is not a game for the camera, but a natural reaction of a person to the realization that now his name is forever inscribed in the history of cinema.
In this regard, the significance of the Golden Eagle film award is undeniable. It gives demand to the beginner, emphasizes the merits of the famous and becomes an important event not only in the biography of everyone, but in the entire cinema.
Now, while the impressions are still fresh, I can say that the young actor Alexander Petrov has become the face of Russian cinema in 2018. "Gogol" (all parts), "T-34", "Policeman from Rublyovka", "Call DiCaprio!", "Ice" - how many star roles in one year! It is no coincidence that at the Golden Eagle he competed in various categories with himself. Well, I congratulate Alexander on his victory and wish him the strength to adequately cope with the fallen fame - after all, such a demand can lead to the appearance of passing roles and to satiety of the public.
I hope that participation in the competition will mark a successful start for the actor and help him in his profession. But in the nomination "Best Actor in a Movie" I had my favorite - Vladimir Mashkov in the movie "Move Up". I always sincerely root for this actor, it was not for nothing that his portrait graced the cover of the first issue of the KinoReporter magazine.
The Golden Eagle Award today is the most important barometer of the state of our cinema. It would seem that the award can give the film "Movement Up", the record holder of our rental? But cinema is not a sport, and far from everything here comes down to digital indicators, although their categorical logic also determines a lot. And yet, the enthusiastic love of the mass audience is one thing, and the recognition of colleagues is quite another. Figuratively speaking, when you are already on the podium and the record numbers have provided you with a gold medal, but you still need a mark “according to the Hamburg account” for the execution technique.
That's the "Hamburg score" could be the victory of "Move Up" in the nomination "Best Film". And despite the fact that the academics voted a little differently this time, the success of the "Move Up" is undeniable. The audience has already voted with purchased tickets, and many academicians have voted with their votes.
I would like to say separately about the significance of the Golden Eagle Award for debutants and just novice filmmakers. Although there is no separate nomination for the best debut film in the list of prizes (by the way, maybe we should fix this), recently our debutants are increasingly competing with established professionals. This year, Oleg Trofim's film "Ice" became a stunningly confident directorial debut. I think if there was a debut nomination, it would not be difficult to predict the victory of this film. But "Ice" had every chance to compete for "adult" awards.
I also want to pay attention to the nominees in the category "Best Short Film". This is a forecast for the future of Russian cinema, and Golden Eagle is giving young short filmmakers a chance to get an offer to launch a feature film. By the way, all three first nominees in this category introduced in 2017 - Kirill Pletnev, Konstantin Fam and Kirill Vasiliev - have already released their full-length works.
And one more note about the film awards. Unlike the Oscars, which one way or another sets the tone for national film awards around the world, the Golden Eagle is not limited to cinema productions. He pays no less attention to television films of various formats. This is a very correct decision in modern conditions, when the main trend is the high artistic level of television series.
Last year, Boris Khlebnikov was nominated for the Golden Eagle with Arrhythmia, this year with the TV series Ordinary Woman. And this example demonstrates another important trend. The best directors of the country, who are in demand in feature films, consciously go to television, not regarding this work as forced day labor. This explains such a rapid increase in the quality of television films. And if the film "Moving Up" proved that domestic cinema is able to compete on equal terms with Hollywood for the Russian audience, then the same "Ordinary Woman" makes it clear that "Game of Thrones" or "Very Stranger Things" also have worthy Russian competitors..