Swiss film success in Canada: The Lost Island wins Hot Docs Festival

A great honor for a Swiss movie. At the Hot Ducks in Toronto, “Ostrov – The Lost Island” of Svetlana Rodina And the Laurent Staub He won the international competition. The Hot Docs is North America’s largest documentary film festival. The film’s world premiere was at the international competition at Visions du Réel in Nyon.

The jury with Sheila Nevins By MTV Networks, Japanese Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda And a member of Oscar Academy Tony Camau Ostrov has been described as “a truly powerful cinematic experience that shows the everyday lives of people in Russia”.

On the deserted island of Ostrov, in the middle of the Caspian Sea, a handful of people live without roads, electricity or work, who were abandoned by the Russian state after the fall of the Soviet Union. Caviar hunting used to be the center of the island’s economy, and now it is illegal. Nevertheless, the fisherman regularly goes out to sea to support his family, and although he was previously imprisoned twice for poaching, he is convinced that he Put it in One day he will be freed from his misery.

As the Toronto winning film, “Ostrov” will automatically be accepted into the Oscars 2022. The producer of the film is Doklab in Bern. The documentary was jointly produced with SRF and funded by the Federal Bureau of Culture, Bern Film Funding, Suissimage, Zurich Film Foundation and many others.

Svetlana Rodina has so far made a name for herself as a presenter and journalist, especially in Russia. Swiss Laurent Stoop works as a photographer all over the world. He used to take a lot of photos in Russia for the Zurich photo agency, Lookat. He was also a delegate photographer for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tajikistan and the Caucasus as well as a documentary filmmaker for SRF and France 2, for example.