Public screenings for the Diamond Butterfly Eurasian film awards have opened in Sukhum, presenting award winning movies from across the region to local audiences.
The showcase brings prize winning features from the newly established Eurasian film honors to Abkhazia, following earlier festival stops in Serbia, China, and cities across Russia.
Darya Gryazeva, a representative for the film awards, told reporters that the travelling showcase had launched its international journey after holding its inaugural ceremony in Moscow in 2025. Gryazeva said organizers plan to take the screenings to Italy and France after the Abkhazia tour, expressing hope that the initiative would continue travelling to further international destinations.
Alexander Sheremet, a counsellor at the Russian Embassy in Abkhazia, addressed the opening ceremony and described the festival as one of the most significant cultural developments across the Eurasian region.
Sheremet credited prominent Russian director and public figure Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov as the primary creator and driving force behind the academy and the awards. The diplomat said Mikhalkov had used his authority, energy, and devotion to cinema to establish a new platform for dialogue, bringing different countries and continents together around spiritual and moral values.
International Tour and Diplomatic Support
Sheremet emphasized the shared history, close human ties, and common spiritual foundation linking Russia and Abkhazia. He told the gathering that Abkhazian participation in the project felt entirely natural at a time when the Diamond Butterfly honors filmmakers for celebrating their heritage and honoring past generations, adding that shared cinematic culture provides a sturdy foundation for future cooperation.
The diplomat added that he felt confident the screenings of award winning films would deliver memorable experiences to viewers in Sukhum while encouraging new creative collaborations.
Opening Night and Soviet Screen Stars
Screenings commenced with the Russian feature film Two in One Life, Not Counting the Dog, directed by Andrei Zaitsev. The drama centers on an elderly married couple living in St. Petersburg who survived World War II as children during wartime hardships.
Producer Olga Granina spoke to reporters before the screening to describe the central story. Granina said the two protagonists now live by themselves after their grown children moved away, displaying an inner wisdom, serenity, optimism, patience, and forgiveness that she described as increasingly hard to find in modern life.
According to Granina, people who feel neglected and in need of warmth and comfort are drawn to the elderly couple and their household like travelers drawn to a fire.
Veteran actors Svetlana Kryuchkova and Alexander Adabashyan took the leading roles in the production, winning the Diamond Butterfly prizes for best actress and best actor. The casting marks a celebrated reunion for the two screen stars, who worked together decades earlier in the 1981 Soviet television adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Adabashyan played the butler Barrymore alongside Kryuchkova as his wife.
Screening Schedule Across Eurasia
The Sukhum program continues on November 3 with an adventure feature by Belarusian director Kirill Kuzin. Kuzin told reporters that his project explores the history of Belarus, focusing on an early seventeenth century uprising where Slavic princes gathered to fight for their independence against Polish forces.
Kuzin explained that the historical conflict unfolds alongside a modern storyline centered on a young investigator who looks into the historical events. The director noted that the film adapts a novel by Vladimir Korotkevich, a celebrated national writer whose books are taught in Belarusian schools, describing Korotkevich as a Belarusian counterpart to the renowned author Sergei Dovlatov. Composer Yuri Poteyenko received the Diamond Butterfly prize for best composer for his work on the production.
The festival continues on November 5 with a double bill of international titles. Audiences will see The Composer, directed by Maksat Klychev from Turkmenistan, alongside Old Righteous Blues, a South African drama by director Muneera Sallies that received the Diamond Butterfly award for best screenplay.
Screenings in Sukhum conclude on November 6 with the family drama Dance with Mom, directed by Dastan Madalbekov and produced jointly by Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Organizers said the movie proved to be one of the most popular titles among audiences during earlier open public screenings.
Eurasian Academy and Diamond Trophies
The Diamond Butterfly honors serve as the central event of the Eurasian Academy of Cinematographic Arts. Mikhalkov, who won an Academy Award for Burnt by the Sun in 1994 and leads the Russian Filmmakers Union, spearheaded the creation of both the academy and the awards competition to showcase cinematic talent across the Eurasian continent.
The Russian Cultural Foundation organizes the honors with official support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Trophies are awarded across 12 distinct competitive categories, honoring achievements in best film, directing, screenwriting, cinematography, original music, and acting performances.
The inaugural presentation ceremony took place in Moscow on November 27, 2025, after an expert selection council evaluated 34 films submitted from 17 countries. Winners across all 12 categories received statuettes encrusted with nearly 5,000 lab grown diamonds.
The competition also presented major financial prizes through certified gems mined in the Sakha Republic of northeastern Russia. The winner of the best film category received a 10 carat Yakutian diamond valued at the equivalent of $1 million, while winners in the remaining categories each collected a five carat diamond valued at approximately $250,000.
