Roman Balayan received the Dovzhenko Prize
Roman Balayan’s website
Film director, screenwriter and producer Roman Balayan became the laureate of this year’s state award named after Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The director was awarded an award for his outstanding contribution to the development of Ukrainian cinematography.
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The decree on awarding the prize appeared on the official website of the President of Ukraine.
The award was presented during the ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Kyiv House of Cinema, “Detektor Media” writes. Balayan was not present at the presentation, so the Armenian Ambassador to Ukraine Volodymyr Karapetyan received the commemorative award for him.
“I would like to congratulate my great compatriot on the awarding of the Dovzhenka Prize“, Karapetyan noted in his speech.
About Roman Balayan
Ukrainian film director of Armenian origin Roman Balayan was born in Nagorny Karabas. He considers himself a student of Serhii Paradzhanov.
In 1959-1961, he was an actor at the Stepanakert Theater (Azerbaijan). In 1961-1964, he studied at the directing faculty of the Yerevan Theater Institute, and in 1969 he graduated from the directing faculty of the Kyiv State Institute of Theater Arts named after Karpenko-Kary.
Roman Balayan began his directorial career at the Kyiv Film Studio
Roman Balayan / Facebook
He began his directorial career in 1970 at the Kyiv Film Studio. His first film was “The Romashkin Effect” (1973). Already his second directorial work – the film “Biriuk” – was nominated for the “Golden Bear” at the 1977 Berlinale.
Roman Balayan (far right) on the set
Oleksandr Bronstein
Balayan’s most famous film – “Flight in dreams and waking life” – was released in 1983, and in four years it became one of the biggest hits of Soviet cinema. In December 2020, the Dovzhenko Center Film Museum opened an exhibition dedicated to the study of Balayan’s cult film of the same name and the era in which it was created.
In July 2021, the director released the first Ukrainian-language film “We are. We are near”. Akhtem Seitablaev played the main role in it.
In 2023, it became known that Balayan began work on a documentary film about Ukrainian contemporary artist Oleksandr Zhivotkov. The future tape was called “Altar”.
About the Dovzhenka award
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko State Prize of Ukraine was established in 1994 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of director Oleksandr Dovzhenko. It is awarded annually by the president at the request of the Dovzhenko Prize Committee.
The first laureate of the Dovzhenka Award was actor Boryslav Brondukov.
In 2012, the award named after Dovzhenka was posthumously awarded to theater and film actor Bohdan Stupka. In 2013, the Ministry of Culture decided not to give the award to anyone. In 2015, the prize was awarded to the creators of the film “Tribe” – the author of the script, the director-director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi and the cameraman-director Valentin Vasyanovych.
Last year, the prize was not awarded.
