WINNERS

The Baikal Film Projects Pitch took place on September 21 at the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund within the framework of the 21st Rasputin Baikal International Film Festival organazed by OGAUK Irkutsk Regional Film Fund and OOO Irkutskkino with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Archives of the Irkutsk Region.

More than 200 people watched the defence of projects in the Great Hall of the Dom Kino. The online broadcast took place on theYoutube channel of the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund.

"We have reviewed five documentary and four feature film projects. All of them are from the Siberian region: Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk. Unfortunately, the cinematographers of Yekaterinburg and Stavropol have not shown up. For the jury members, it was an interesting, difficult job. We were looking for a compromise — and have found it: we decided to divide between the laureates cash prizes in the amount of 300 thousand rubles from the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund for financial support of the future film (150 thousand) and for technical equipment (also 150 thousand)."
Yuri Dorokhin (chairperson) — director, producer, screenwriter, head of the REC. Production film studio, member of the Russian Union of Cinematographers;

Projects dedicated to the ecological state of Lake Baikal, the last inhabitants of the dying Karda village, volunteer firefighters working in the forests of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia were presented in the documentary category. There was an observational film about Siberian musicians and the reaction to their music, and one more was about Evgeny Grishin, the legend of Russian bandy.

Winning projects in the Documentary Category

— The Berth (written and directed by Nikolai Yakovlev) –150,000 rubles certificate from the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund, 250,000 rubles certificate from the REC. Production film studio - for free-of-charge use of film equipment

— The Ice Knight project (written and directed by Semyon Kolesnikov, produced by Dmitry Rezvykh).

Among the feature films (short meter and full-length ones) there were projects about the metamorphoses that occur with a person who moves to a new place, a mystical story about a mermaid and a fallen angel, a thriller from Krasnoyarsk.

The winners in the Feature Films Category were:

— Shift (written and directed by Ivan Bazhenov) – a 150,000 certificate from the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund;

— Cut off My Legs (written by Daria Piotukhovskaya, directed by Nina Grigorieva) – a 150,000 certificate from the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund (technical support).

— The special prize from the Gaidai Cinema Development Center - an individual consultation from production designer Timofey Makhnev - was received by Mikhail Serebrenikov's project A Whisper in the Shadow.

On September 22, Irkutsk cinematographers Yuri Yashnikov, Anastasia Zverkova and Pavel Skorobogatov held master classes You'd Better Forget about Making Movies If You don't Want to Learn How to Participate in Pitches, Your movie. How to See the Author in Yourself?; From a Pitch to a Film Festival. A Wonderful Journey. They can be viewed on the Youtube channel of the Irkutsk Regional Film Fund.