Christina Tynkevych’s feature debut How Is Katia? was named the winner of the national competition of Ukraine’s Molodist Film Festival, held for the second year in a row as a festival within a festival at Filmfest Hamburg in Germany.
The Scythian Deer statuette and a cash prize of $2,500 was presented to the film’s producer Olha Matat on October 5, at the Abaton cinema by the jury of actress Alina Levshin, psychologist Svetlana Uvarova and film director David Wagner.
The drama about an ambulance doctor seeking justice in an imperfect world had premiered in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition in 2022 where it won the special jury prize and the best actress award for Anastasia Karpenko.
The film’s international distribution is being handled by Coccinelle Film Sales.
“We saw seven movies that were all outstanding in one way or the other,” said Wagner, speaking for the jury. “ We want to pay our respect to all the Ukrainian filmmakers, who in times of disruption, change and even war, find the courage to continue making their art., Europe needs that and humanity needs that because telling stories is what makes us human what connects us.”
The jury gave special mentions to Antonio Lukich’s Luxembourg, Luxembourg, with Wagner declaring director Lukich, the lead actors brothers Amil and Ramil Nasirov and actress Lyudmyla Sachenko to be “a dream team of comedy filmmaking”, and also to Iryna Tsilyk’s subtly humorous coming of age tale Rock.Paper.Grenade.
Molodist’s festival director Andriy Khalpakhchi explained the national competition in Kyiv had always been reserved for Ukrainian shorts, while the local feature films were often selected to then compete in the festival’s international competition.
He said that after the warm welcome from the Filmfest’s organisers in these two years, Molodist would like to return to Hamburg again in the future with this competition dedicated to Ukrainian feature films.
Three of the six feature films shown this week in the Molodist competition in Hamburg - Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Do You Love Me? and La Palisiada - are also in the running for the Ukrainian National Critics’ Kinokolo Awards which will be presented on the first evening of the sixth edition of the Kyiv Critics’ Week on October 12.
Philip Sotnichenko’s La Palisiada, which had its world premiere in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition last January, has five nominations for best feature film, best director, est screenplay, best actor, and best opening, while Antonio Lukich’s Luxembourg, Luxembourg received four nods for best feature film, best director, best screenplay, and best actor, and Tonia Noyabrova’s Do You Love Me? was nominated for her screenplay and for Karyna Khymchuk’s performance.
Meanwhile, the critics’ awards were dominated by Maryna Vroda’s debut feature Stepne tha garnered six nominations.
The film won the best director prize in Locarno’s main competition in August this year.
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