Grand prix of the festival was given to the film “A Fragile world” of estonian director Ants Tammik

The winners of the 16th Baikal International Festival of Documentary and Popular-Science Films n.a. V.Rasputin  «People and Environment» have been announced. Grand Prix of the Festival was given to the film «A Fragile World» of Estonian director Ants Tammik, about the opposition of nature and world artificially created by man.

The festival jury awarded the prize «Best documentary film» to the film «Sea Tomorrow»  (director Katerina Suvorova, Germany — Kazakhstan, 2016), and «Best popular science film» was given to «Lake Vostok. The Mountain of Madness»  (director Ekaterina Yeremenko, Russia, 2017).
The full-dome program exists in the festival program for three years. This year there were three films in the contest program where the film «Baikal. Winter spirit»  (directors Michael Owen, Grigory Molodtsov, USA — Russia, 2017) won the «Best full-dome film» prize. Despite this the special prize from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Irkutsk Region was awarded to the full-dome film «Minin» of Irkutsk director Maxim Savchenko. This film also was given a prize from the Ministry of Culture and Archives of the Irkutsk Region.

This year «Baikal» prize in memory of V.Rasputin was awarded to the film «Born to be free»  (director Gayane Petrosyan, Russia — Great Britain, 2014) for the burning ecological problem stated in it. The majority of audience voted for the «Lake Vostok. The Mountain of Madness» by Ekaterina Yeremenko. We should mention that this year the voting was organized in a new format for the first time: people could give the voices by phone for the film they liked. The results were known right before the awarding ceremony.

Almost 9 000 viewers had visited the Festival during 5 days, 68 films screenings were performed in «Dom Kino» and «Zvezdniy» cinematheatres, in Irkutsk Planetarium, Castro café and in the Irkutsk Regional Library n.a. Molchanov-Sibirskiy. There were also special screenings of the film «Saint Innocent (Veniaminov). The glorious and honoured name created by the Irkutsk Regional Film Foundation, and the block of documentaries devoted to Valentine Rasputin 80 th anniversary.

 
Three master-classes were conducted within the frameworks of the Film school at the festival: «A different way to look at science in Digital Domes» by Enrique Fonte, «Filmmaking in the region: Perm model» by Pavel Pechenkin and «Search of new forms in popular-science films» by Ekaterina Eremenko.

The III Baikal Pitching already became traditional: the best film projects were presented by the participants from Irkutsk Region, Buryat Republic and Zabaikalskiy Kray. The winners were awarded with 120 000 rubles from Irkutsk Regional Film Foundation (with the support of the ministry of culture and archives of the Irkutsk region).

Besides the photo exhibition of the project «Rare specimen» created to the 100 th anniversary of protected areas in Russia was opened in Dom Kino. There was also a Trade fair of the ecological enterprise school during the festival where the visitors could buy author’s ceramics and eco-souvenirs from Baikal, and also taste herbal tea, jam and handmade chocolate. At the traditional eco-breakfast the participants of the festival learnt to cook borsch and blini (pancakes).