The Cinema Warrior – Cultural Resistance Award, dedicated to the perseverance, sacrifice and madness of those ‘warriors’ who work- or rather ‘battle’ for cinema behind the scenes, is awarded this year to the Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky. Mansky’s work has played a leading role in the Festival, which also paid homage to the filmmaker by taking a look back on his career.
The accolade looks to recognise “not only the consistency in his uncompromising choice of creating cinema that always resists political pressure, but his commitment to supporting the documentary genre through his Artdocfest, a cultural project that, appearing first in Moscow, then in Riga and in other former Soviet Union cities, has always defended the idea of independent cinema, even that which is not officially sanctioned.”
