Winners of the 3rd Far Eastern Film Awards Announced in Khabarovsk

The 3rd Far Eastern Film Awards ceremony was held in Khabarovsk. The national professional awards recognize achievements in filmmaking and contributions to the development of the film industry in the Russian Far East.

The winner in the Animated Film (Animated Series) category was Abduction, produced by Zelyonye Kamneyezhki Studio from Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

The award winners were:

• Debut: Gold of Toyon Bai: A Geologist’s Diary
• Feature Film: Red Silk
• Director: The Big Land
• Short Film: Pole
• Arctic: Russian Spitsbergen
• Screenplay: Yuryev Island
• Animated Film (Animated Series): Abduction

Alexander Mikhailov received the award for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Cinema.

This year, the competition received 567 submissions. A total of 121 works were included in the longlist, while 25 films were shortlisted following expert evaluation. Two additional works were selected as finalists by decision of the expert council.

For the first time, the awards program included a category for Best Film About the Arctic and the Far North, which received more than 20 submissions.

Alexey Chekunkov, Minister of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East and Arctic, noted that the awards reflect changes in how the Far East and the Arctic are perceived.

According to him, the growing number of submissions in the family film category demonstrates the emergence of a new image of these regions in cinema: they are increasingly becoming settings for stories about friendship, love and raising children.

“Over these three years, the competition has established an important place in the Russian film industry. We have evolved from a closed awards ceremony into a full-scale congress with a business and educational program, providing a platform for discussing pressing issues and proposing measures to develop the industry across the country,” Alexey Chekunkov emphasized.

The awards have also introduced their own commemorative statuette, created by sculptor Zhigzhit Bayaskhalanov.