On July 13, the Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater saw the solemn opening ceremony of the OIFF-2018, during which the films of the competition programs, the jury members and other famous guests were presented
The opening ceremony of the OIFF-2018 united film professionals from all over the world. Janina Sokolova and Oleh Panyuta were the hosts at the event. This year, OIFF received 1011 applications, and out of them, 108 films from 95 countries will be presented at the festival.
The ceremony started with an incredible performance by Apache Crew dance crew.
Pavel Rozenko, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, gave the introductory remarks urging everyone to support Oleg Sentsov, since that day the illegally imprisoned director turned 42 years old. Throughout the days of the Festival there will be a special place reserved for Oleg for each screening. And a short video telling about his decision to announce an indefinite hunger strike since May 14 will precede every film.
Pylyp Illenko, the head of Ukrainian State Film Agency, said: "The Odessa Film Festival and Ukrainian cinema are united in the process of revival of Ukrainian cinema that we are seeing today". Besides, he noted, that the number of Ukrainian films is increasing each year and this year OIFF has 49 of them. Then the floor went to Maxim Stepanov, the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration; to Anatoliy Urbansky the chairman of the Odesa Regional Council and to Gennadiy Trukhanov, the mayor of Odessa.
Victoria Tigipko, the OIFF President, greeted the guests of the film festival and said: "The OIFF program is unique. But unfortunately, 90% of the pictures that will be shown here, at the Odesa Film Festival, will not join Ukrainian film distribution. Therefore, coming to Odesa in summer gives you a chance to see them on a big screen. Today we are observing the renaissance of cinema in Ukraine. And we can judge not only by festival films - commercial cinema is also gaining momentum. The box office of such films as "Kiborgs", "The Stolen Princess", "Dzidzio contrabass" has amounted to 20-35 million hryvnias. And this is with only 520 cinema halls. Fair enough, we need at least twice as many. But even now we can talk about the prospects of high-quality cinema".
The first award of the 9th Odesa International Film Festival – the Golden Duke for the contribution to the cinema – was given by a special OIFF guest – Eric Roberts. "Truthiness is what we, actors, want to achieve. And only a few of us succeed", he noted. The first prize was awarded to Ada Rogovtseva. "You can hardly imagine what I'm feeling right now," said the legendary actress. “At the age of only two months I was brought to Odesa. Here I grew up and enjoyed my happy life when the war began. My childhood was burned down by that terrible war. After that I have been living, living, living for quite a long time (because I’m getting 81 in 3 days) and now it’s war again. And again we are talking about a boy who is like a son to me. We are talking about Sentsov. And about those guys who are now at war. But we all do have enough strength, inspiration, kindness and mercy to create and to come to such important events as today"
The films of competitive programs were announced: 12 films are presented in the International Competition Program of OIFF-2018, 6 films take part in the European Documentary program, and the National Program includes 5 full-length and 13 short films.
The jury of the 9th OIFF was also announced. The President of the Jury is Ewa Puszczynska, producer (Poland). Together with her, the films of the International Competition will be evaluated by Rites Batra, film director (India), Igor Minaev, theater and film director, screenwriter (Ukraine / France), Arnaud des Pallieres, director and scriptwriter (France) and Ia Shugliashvili, actress (Georgia). The works of Ukrainian cinematographers will be evaluated by Kate Molchanova, actress (Ukraine), Levan Koguashvili, film director and screenwriter (Georgia), Martina Bleis, co-head and project curator of the Berlinale Co-Production Market (Germany) and Marianne Slot, producer (France). The curator of the European Documentary Films is Serhiy Bukovsky, the winner of the last year's OIFF Award for Best Documentary. Ostap Kostyuk, film director (Ukraine), Dorota Lech, Programming Associate (Poland) and Galia Bador (Israel) will evaluate the films of the European Documentary Contest at the 9th OIFF. This year, the FIPRESCI jury include film critics Sergii Vasyliev Jr., (Ukraine), Robert Gorton (USA) and Sanjin Pejkovic (Sweden).
The Erling Band Trio from the Opening film “The Woman at War” marked the end of the official part of the Ceremony with a musical performance. After that the opening film was presented by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, the leading actress, Carine Leblanc,producer, Serge Lavrenyuk, co-producer, and Aliona Lavrenyuk, actress.
At the end of the ceremony, “Figaro“, the official catering partner of the Odesa Film Festival, invited the guests to the Marie Antoinette Opening Party at the Literature Museum yard. “ARARAT”, the official alcohol sponsor of the festival, treated the guests with the legendary Armenian brandy.
The first day marked the start of the screenings at Green Theater. The viewers had a chance to watch the films of non-competitive program which included “Dummy” and “Brief Encounters” – special screenings and works dedicated to the memory of Kira Muratova, a famous director, screenwriter and actress. This section will also screen the restored 4k version of Stanley Kubrick's movie "2001: The Space Odyssey", "The Night Eats the World" (directed by Dominique Rocher), presented by a well-known actor Dennis Lavant and other films.
The after-party took place at Caleton Festival Club, where the exclusive set from BNRTM was waiting for the guests.
The guests were driven to the red carpet by the official Renault Auto Partner, and the beauty looks were created by Oh My Look, the Red Carpet official partner. “ARARAT” treated the guests at Palais Royal and at Elissa - BAR & RESTAURANT, the Official Restaurant Partner of the Festival’s opening and closing ceremonies. The innovative Samsung partner presented its brand zone there.