Leanid Kalitsenia: In my opinion "Souls Dead" sets an example of how a movie should be made

Viktar Krasouski. Photo by the EuroBelarus Information Service

The winners of the VI Belarusian Film Festival Bulbamovie 2016 were announced in Minsk.

The main award - Golden Potato – went to the one-shot feature film “Souls Dead” by Viktar Krasouski, which was recognized by the jury as the best live-action film. It’s unique as no one has made a one-shot feature film of such length in Belarus before. Apart from the professional actors, people with disabilities were shot in in the "Souls Dead" as well.

Film director Viktar Krasouski shared with EuroBelarus Information Service that he didn’t expect to see his film win and even cheered for two other films - "Twentysixteen" and "Vyanok". However, the creator of "Souls Dead" does not deny: his film is perfect.

- We had a lot of preparatory work. The movie was shot during three days (two days for rehearsals and one day of actual filming). But there was extensive preparatory work: we went to the location, measured everything with a stopwatch, read and cut the script.

Bulbamovie festival producer and by coincidence the producer of the winning film Leanid Kalitsenia noted:

- When you make a film, you always hope to make it well and of high quality. And it’s pleasant when your efforts are recognized by the experts and the audience later. "Souls Dead" is the first award-winning film in my experience, money for its post-production was collected by "the whole world" (by Crowdfunding - EuroBelarus). And there is still "Count in Oranges", which has not won anything yet, but it will compete at "Listapad".

The beauty of "Souls Dead" project is not that it has won something and received high praise from experts. For me as a producer it is very valuable that the concept of scenario belonged to one person, scenario development to another one - Sergei Antsalevich, the film was directed by Viktar Krasouski, and Alexander Yafremau took part as the second producer. There were a lot of good actors who spent 6 months on preparatory work and one day on shooting. Personally for me it sets an example of how a movie should be made: 180 days of preparations and one day of shooting itself. And the post-production period was as long as the preparatory work.

Besides the Viktar Krasouski’s film, several other projects received awards. The jury has not only recognized "Children of the future are asleep” by Ivan Gapienka as the best animated film but it has also been given the Best Sound award. The People's Choice Award went to “Vyanok” by Pavel Nedzvedz.

The animated movie "Lambersek and milkmaid" by Anatol Tadorski and feature film “Twentysixteen” by Andrey Krivetsky and Dmitry Rachkovsky both received Jury Prize.

The Festival Award ceremony was held in the small hall of the "Titan" art cinema. It is noteworthy that half of the seats were left empty.

- Of course, we need to outreach a wider audience. The thing is that the format of the festival has changed a lot after moving to Belarus (Bulbamovie was held in Poland until last year - EuroBelarus). While it was a one-day event before, we made it a three-day one now. And tickets for the opening of the festival were sold out already three days before it. But on the next day we saw empty seats in the cinema hall - people are not accustomed to the new format yet. So there is a lot of work and development ahead of us, - said Leanid Kalitsenia.

Bulbamovie film festival was initiated by a group of Belarusian cinematographers and film critics as an alternative to the state festivals held in Belarus back in in 2011. Its founder and director is Janusz Gawryluk, Polish philologist and journalist of Belarusian origin.  

The festival was held in Warsaw till 2014 and it moved to Minsk in 2015.

VI Belarusian Film Festival Bulbamovie opened in Minsk on October 21. The program of the festival involved 24 feature films, documentaries and animated films.