SIFFA 2024

A Cultural Platform for Peace

In 2024 the festival returned to London as the IRIDA Russian-British International Film Festival & Awards (SIFFA 2024), running from 18–24 November. Against a backdrop of global tension, the edition set out to be exactly what its press release called it, a cultural platform for peace, celebrating international films that reveal the diverse, and often unseen, cultures of the world: creative, captivating and often provocative storytelling.

The winning films, chosen by SIFFA’s shorts and documentary juries, reached for profound themes: the philosophical idea of preserving oneself in love (Altai), the patience and resilience of mothers (Little Baluches), and the ache of growing up (Vovka).

The future of humanity largely depends on how it correctly chooses the goal and direction of movement towards it.

In Competition: The Winners

The year’s In Competition awards were presented across two strands, the Short Film and Documentary competitions, each judged by its own panel drawn from the international jury.

• SIFFA President Award: Altai, the Grain of the Future, dir. Natalya Bondarchuk
• Best Documentary: Little Baluches, dir. Raya Nasiri
• Best Debut Film (Vera Glagoleva Award): Voiceless, dir. Zahra Mojahed
• Best Documentary Director: The Human Side of Plastic: Babacar Thiaw, dirs. Andrew Lynch, Ben Ayers & Rush Sturges
• Best Short Film: Going First, dir. Anna Lee
• Best Short Film Director: Vovka, dir. Oksana Stashenko
• Best Actor: Masoud Keramati, Don’t Worry About Me
• Best Screenplay: Sweet Sorrow, dir. Parisa Zandbaf
• Best Pictorial Art: Alien, dir. Jurita Kalite
• Best Montage: Shift Change, dir. Mark Hensley
• Best Youth Film (Mohy Quandour Award): From the Painter’s View, dir. Goli Zarei

Special Focus: Russian Literature on Screen

Out of competition, SIFFA’s Special Focus turned to Russian literature seen through the lenses of British and Russian directors, a programme of Academy Award-, Palme d’Or- and festival-winning cinema:

• The Cranes Are Flying (1957), dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
• Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears (1980), dir. Vladimir Menshov
• The Double (2013), dir. Richard Ayoade
• Two Women (2014), dir. Vera Glagoleva
• Vysotsky. Unknown… a true story (2018–2024), dir. Anatoly Balchev
• Seven Moments of Robert Rozhdestvensky (2022), dir. Pavel Menyaylo
• Khitrovka. The Sign of Four (2023), dir. Karen Shakhnazarov

A special screening of shorts featured The Place (2001) by Arkady Kogan.

Partners & Honours

Alongside the competition, SIFFA recognised the people and organisations who make the festival possible:

• Distinguished Patronage: the Dear Darling management and team, for three years of exceptional commitment
• Best SIFFA Partner of the Year: Anvar Turobov, founder and managing director of ALNUR
• Excellence in Digital Art & Design: Anastasia Ivanova

Closing the Edition

Across a week of screenings, ceremonies and conversations, SIFFA 2024 held to its founding belief: that cinema can carry understanding across borders, even in a divided moment. The winners, the special-focus programme and the partners honoured that evening all spoke to the same idea: stories, told well, bring the world a little closer together.