On April 14, second international cinematographic "East - West. Golden Arch" award ceremony will be held at the Et Cetera Theater in Moscow. Organizers are interested in the territory, which historically and geographically has been and remains at the center between Europe and Asia, where multinational cinema industry of the USSR was formed.
The "East - West. Golden Arch" award is intended to draw attention to the artistic processes that take place in the shadows compared to more commercial, mostly English-language cinema. This project involves Azerbaijan, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Greece, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Finland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia.
As chairman of the board of “East-West. Golden Arch” award, chairman of the Confederation of Unions of Cinematographers of the CIS and Baltic countries, director Rustam Ibrahimbekov said, such projects require a lot of time: “We've made very important step, the first among many. Soon we will get support of both Russian and European film communities. So far, it seems that significance of this award is not understood that well. The most important thing is to pay attention to is great cinema created at the junction of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, which are cradles of human civilization. This will be possible only with sufficient influence and attention. I think this time we won't achieve much success in this sense. But my experience has shown that at least three attempts are needed to achieve something. If we manage to do it for the third time, then we will achieve our goal."
According to Ibrahimbekov, presented films are very serious, and jury consists of 25 film critics and experts from 12 countries of the world. "People who selected films for the competition offer jury a wide range of motion pictures made in different countries, but Russian films often take leading places in the shortlist, despite existing stereotype that Russian cinema is not interesting enough, not good enough. This award is absolutely objective. People living very far from Russia, along with several notable films made in other countries, nominate films made in Russia. It important to highlight that because expert assessments can really help to understand the state of Russian cinema industry."