Lutsk, the center of Volyn oblast, recently hosted the third professional and amateur film festival My City, My Love. This time, unlike the previous two festivals, among the contestants were filmmakers from Lutsk and Volyn as well as other oblasts of Ukraine and from Poland, who submitted a total of 69 productions. For the first time the festival included a blitz tournament whose participants had to make a film about the ancient town of Luchesk, which marked its City Day on Aug. 18-19 — and they had to make this film during the festival.
Most of the prizes were awarded to filmmakers from Lutsk because they had prior experience of competing in such festivals. The jury, headed by Kyiv film director Taras Tomenko, awarded the Grand Prix to Iryna Levchanivska (Lutsk). This noted historian of the Volyn region and amateur filmmaker will celebrate her 94th birthday in fall 2007. The film she submitted was described by Tomenko as “cinema in the purest sense of the word, when the author, armed only with a camera, succeeds in creating a solid production.” Her film, entitled The Most Fearsome Beast, is about her beloved tomcat, and it won her the highest and well-deserved award. Her age had absolutely nothing to do with the audience’s admiration and the jury’s recognition.
Bratkovsky’s Volhynian Golgotha by the Volyn national amateur studio won the best historical documentary nomination; Kazimierz on the Vistula (Poland) was named best tourist film; Pavlo Sivak’s Life Goes On (Khmelnytsky) was the best animated film; Olha Voloshyna’s The Tireless Luminary (Dnipropetrovsk) was named best feature film. Our Lesia, by the children’s studio Boryviter, won the best educational film nomination. Dmytro Potapchyk’s film won the Cinema like Life nomination for his same-titled film, and Leonid Tyvoniuk’s Toys won the prize “For Implementing a Philosophical Idea.”
The Lutsk film festival is continuing to discover new names in the field of filmmaking, and the city already boasts two famous names: film director Oles Sanin and cameraman Serhii Mykhalchuk.
