The Thirtieth Molodist (Youth) International Film Festival was marked by unprecedented statistics. In a week and a half, it was attended by 120,000. In fact, impressive figures like this are no exception but the rule. Over the past several years every Molodist has proved to surpass all previous ones. The favorable attitude of professionals was also marked: film directors, producers, and keepers of movie archives in 41 countries submitted over a hundred films in retrospective and to vie in the contest. Under the Molodist program, vying for prizes took place in between debuts in four categories: animated cartoons, shorts, student movies, and full length motion pictures.
The results announced at the closing ceremony brought forth the most varied sentiments, as usual, because there were hundreds of absolutely irreconcilable unofficial juries in the audience. But even most digressing opinions would coincide at a certain point, the bewitching Louis Briceno’s French animated Caged Birds Don’t Fly winning the audience choice award. Watching it, the jury laughed with the rest of the audience, awarding the Birds and Russia’s Spring Has Come a prize worth $2,500 in the animation nomination, to be divided between the two productions. In all, there were four juries working at the festival. The Ecumenical Jury, made up of clergymen representing several Christian confessions, highly praised the Belgian short Echo for its antifascist orientation. The media, on its part, gave its guild’s FIPRESS award to Sweden’s Linus TinstrЪm’s virtuoso 5-minute To Be Continued...
As for the main awards, according to the French movie critic Jean Roy, among his colleagues on the jury over which he presided there was unanimity. The best short film (awarded $2,500 for laser subtitles) was the sentimental sketch Scarecrow contributed by Molodist’s habitual contestant Aleksandr Kott from Russia. In the student film nomination, Lady Luck smiled on Ukraine in the person of Volodymyr Doshchuk, Film Department student at Kyiv’s Theatrical Institute, for his mini-farce Bad, Evil, and Still Worse. The Yves Montand Prize in the best festival actor, worth 5,000 franks, went to Jamie Bell for his portrayal, rather dancing the part of, a teenager dreaming of a ballet career in the British movie Billy Elliot, and the same movie won a prize worth $2,500 in the full-length motion picture nomination.
The ceremony of presenting the Grand Prix of the Festival, the Scythian Deer, with $10,000, was also a manifestation of record interest in Molodist by officialdom, for the ceremony in Kyiv’s House of Cinematographers boasted Premier Viktor Yushchenko, the first time such a high official graced the event and a most meaningful gesture. The winner, hitherto forlorn Ukrainian- French Roch Stefanik with his melodramatic Waiting List that conquered the jury, found himself among festival contenders up to the final minute; without hope, he left for his home country, prematurely, as it turned out. His award was accepted by the French Ambassador. For the Prime Minister, his visit was just another line in the daily working schedule; for Yunist, it was a rather expressive gesture. Attention costs a great deal. It is no secret that the current Molodist took place under quite complicated conditions, and it would be utterly naive to blame only the organizing committee. Many blunders born of lack of coordination and lack of understanding by both commercial and official structures could have been avoided given our state’s somewhat greater love for the only international film festival on its territory.
One way or another, Molodist has entered the new millennium beloved by its audiences and many filmmakers. Now it remains only to hope for something like a miracle, for symbols and attractive signs to be transformed into the flesh and blood of a living film industry.
