The Tribe and Hard To Be A God win top prizes at Nika awards

Ukrainian drama The Tribe and Russian science fiction film Hard To Be A God won top honours at the Nika Awards, Russia’s main annual film awards ceremony, in Moscow last night. The Tribe, directed by Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytsky, is entirely in sign language with no subtitles, and won the award for best film from the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltics. Aleksei German’s Hard To Be A God, a film based on a novel by Russian sci-fi writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, was named best Russian film of the year.

German began work on Hard To Be A God, his last film, in the 1980s, with his widow, the screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita, and his son, director Aleksei German Jr, finishing the film following his death in 2013.

Slaboshpytsky’s sign-language drama, which is the director’s debut, won the Critic’s Week grand prize at the Cannes film festival last year. Slaboshpytsky was not present at the award ceremony, but he sent in a statement expressing support for jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was imprisoned in 2014 on terrorism charges.

The Nika for best actress went to Elena Lyadova for her role in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan, while best supporting actress went to Daria Moroz for her role on Yuriy Bykov’s The Fool.