During the online Awards Ceremony at Docudays UA 2020, the Ukrainian Doc Preview projects were awarded. The East Silver Caravan Award was virtually handed to the director Marta Smerechynska and the producer Natalia Libet for their project Diary of a Bride of Christ. The project also got DOK Leipzig Award. East Silver Caravan's Salt from Bonneville by Simon Mozgovyi got the proMOTION Grant Award from the Ukrainian Institute.
Jury statement
We decided to support the project, which is a very personal family story. A story of personal courage, faith and determination, but also a unique insight into a secluded community. We appreciate the director's will to ask difficult questions, to seek the understanding and present it in a very cinematic way. The East Silver Caravan Award goes to Diary of a Bride of Christ by Marta Smerechynska.
East Silver Caravana Award
The Institute of Documentary Film supported many Ukrainian documentaries over the years, either through our Ex Oriente Film Workshop, networking events such as East Doc Platform or by the means of East Silver Market and its festival distribution support. And since Ukrainian cinema is constantly of high quality and brings many important topics and stories, we would love to extend our support and help one project to reach an international audience. The awarded title will receive one year of festival support - we will collaborate on the festival strategy, recommend the film to the festival selectors around the world and do all the festival submissions for free. Just to give you some ideas about the films we have worked with, for example, Home Games by Alisa Kovalenko, Salt from Bonneville by Simon Mozgovyi, My Father Is My Mother's Brother by Vadym Ilkov or short film No! No! No! by Mikola Ridnyi. East Silver Caravan titles are currently being submitted to 194 film festivals worldwide.
About Diary of a Bride of Christ
For the young girls who choose to become the brides of Christ, their lives are full of His love. The nuns see its manifestation in everything – the removal of their hair and the renunciation of their names. 12 new Ukrainian future nuns take the cross in a remote village in Transcarpathia, near the border between Ukraine and Romania. A large-scale celebration of the 20th anniversary of the serving of the Argentinean congregation in Ukraine. Hundreds of nuns from all over the world at a meeting in Rome. And days of absolute silence and intimate personal stories from the nuns about the emergence of their vocation. What is it like, to be a bride of Christ?
We are also happy that Salt from Bonnevile, which was awarded East Silver Caravan Award at Beldocs 2019, got the proMOTION Grant Award from the Ukrainian Institute. Here is a jury statement: The jury decided to support one project that brings a unique Ukrainian story set in an unusual environment. In a rather exotic setting a very universal tale unfolds. With stunning visual images a story of two close people is presented in a very sensitive way. A true documentary buddy movie, a film about hardship, personal challenges and in the end about accepting the place in the world. The jury decided to award the Salt from Bonneville by Simon Mozgovyi.
Two big awards in the competitions of DOCU/UKRAINE and DOCU/WORLD got Iryna Tsilyk's film The Earth Is Blue As an Orange, which was part of East Doc Market at East Doc Platform 2019.
The closing film of Docudays UA was Tomáš Krupa's The Good Death (East Silver Caravan 2019), which was nominated in the RIGHTS NOW! section.
