Emir Baigazin's Harmony Lessons won first prize at Swiss festival

Harmony Lessons directed by Emir Baigazin won the award at the 3rd international film festival Bildrausch Film Fest Basel in Switzerland this summer, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the press-service of KazakhFilm studios. The Kazakhstan movie shared the main prize of the festival with Durth-German movie It’s All So Quiet by Nanouk Leopold. The winners received 3 thousand Swiss francs ($3,160) and Bildrausch festival’s symbols: the cinema art rings with engraved name of the movie and its director. The jury noted the strongly pronounced cinema language of the director, his decisive and clear style, as well as convincing power of the artists’ works. “Harmony Lessons is the movie covering the topic of the archaic conflicts, bravely leading the audience to the dark heart of the person on the other side of one-dimentional moralization,” one of the jury members said. Receiving the award, Emir Baigazin thanked all the participants of the movie, in particular, the young actors who showed real bravery during the shooting. “I am very happy to wear the ring with the name of my first movie,” the director said. The contest of Bildrausch festival included the total of 12 movies. Retrospectives of the movies of Russian director Marlen Khutsiev and Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi were also part of the program. Bildrausch Film Fest Basel festival was established in 2011. It is focused on indie and innovative movies. Every year the festival brings forward the outstanding movies that are worth attention that receive awards and recognition of the prestigious international film festivals. Harmony Lessons, Emir Baigazin’s debut movie, was awarded with the Berlinale Silver Bear for the best camera work and with a prize of the prominent German newspaper Morgen Post at this year's Berlin Festival. Then the movie won a special jury prize for the Best Filmmaker’s Debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.