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2008 Golden Dolphin Photo and Film Festival in Moscow

By Jason Heller, March 1, 2008 @ 02:00 AM (EST)

by Gyula Somogyi

February 14 - 17, 2008: Moscow was home to the VII Annual International Foto and Film Festival, the Golden Dolphin. The capital of the Russian Federation serves as a huge scene to this festival - the combination of the beauty of the underwater world and the rich city results a very colorful and lively festival and exhibition.

The big exhibition hall is in the Gostivny Dvor, just a few steps form the famous Red Square. The huge open air space accommodated all the booths, the movie theater booth and the photo exhibition as well.

Make no mistake: the heavy diving market of Russia is one of the biggest in the world! Several newspapers, tabloids, websites and diving clubs serve the demand of the diving community, especially in Moscow. Sim Magazine has chosen a very special way to promote the magazine, as you can see here below...you don't see this type of promotion in the US.

DivePhotoGuide was honored take part in this exhibition and tried to share our expertise and perspective with our Russian diving brethren. However, we were not the only US based company at the show. Plenty of gear manufacturers and media companies like DPG attracted divers from all over Russia. It seemed like the technical diving booths were particularly popular. The language differences caused a little hurdle, but our friendly bar helped us to overcome of such trivial difficulties. Apparently booze is a universal language! After a Unicum (a special Hungarian liquor), you could understand every language without a problem.

Underwater photographers & videographers signed up for DivePhotoGuide memberships. This was our second year exhibiting in Moscow, and we welcome our newest members from Russia!

At the back of the convention hall, a well equipped stage hosted several events and shows. The award ceremony and film festival were also hosted here.

During the festival seminars were held about videography and photography, and a special exhibit gave examples of the history of Russian underwater imaging equipment.

The photo and video festival has a long history and a good reputation. The philosophy behind the Golden Dolphin comes from the Academy Awards. The small, the medium and the large golden dolphin statues symbolise the gold, silver and bronze awards. The award ceremony is one of the best in the world. It is a long show with local TV stars, famous actors and special guests; an excellent ambience is guaranteed.

This year’s special attraction was the mermaid dance, in a large, transparent vat. It was simply phenomenal...

My friend, Dean Burman who arrived from London with his drinking buddy, Scottie, was also very excited, his film was entered into the competition, as was my short film.

Our booth, the DPG bar (which has now traveled from Antibes in the south of France to Moscow, and soon to Italy and other stops at European dive expos), entertained many of the film festival participants, including, as we figured out later, the winner of the photo festival, Andrey Bizyukin (pictured below accepting his award). Andrey is the Russian representative for our partners X Ray Mag.

The Golden Dolphin has several categories for still images and for moving pictures as well. A complete list of winners and winning images can be found on the Golden Dolphin website. We encourage you to participate in the 2009 festival! Of course we'll be there reporting from the show floor once again. Congratulations to the winners of the competition and to the show organizers for a great show!

Comments

Mar 2, 2008 9:34 AM

Dan Billings wrote:

Russia really looks like they know how to put on a good show! Need some of that over here!

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