Comedy drama wins best film award at NIKA

Russian director Alexander Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank Away his Globe (2013) won the award for best film at the NIKA film award ceremony last night. Among its prizes, the film walked away with awards for best director, with the film’s protagonists played by Konstantin Khabensky and Elena Lyadova winning NIKAs for best actors.

Film director and president of the award ceremony Andrei Konchalovsky praised the development of Russian cinema in recent years, saying: “Several years ago I was very pessimistic, but now I see that powerful talents have appeared on the Russian cinema scene. We are lucky that we don’t have much money, because more money would mean more bad films being made. Hopefully we’ll hear the quiet voice of genius in film.”

Veledinsky’s comedy film is adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by writer Alexei Ivanov, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Charting the stressful life of the protagonist, secondary-school geography teacher Viktor Sluzhkin from the Ural city of Perm, the comedy has already swept a number of film awards, including the Grand Prix prize at the Kinotavr Russian Film Festival in Sochi last year.

Taking place at the Moscow Operetta, Veledinsky’s film was in competition with Zhora Kryzhovnikov’s film Now a Kiss! (Gorko!), which won discovery of the year. Also a success was director Fedor Bondarchuk’s film Stalingrad, which won awards for best sound effects, best artistic director and best film costume.