The Meaning and Significance of the Diamond Butterfly Film Award Discussed at the United Cultures Forum in St Petersburg
On 24 September 2026, two landmark events of the Open Eurasian Film Award “Diamond Butterfly” took place as part of the 12th St Petersburg International United Cultures Forum: Nikita Mikhalkov’s thematic session and a screening of Andrey Zaitsev’s “Two People in One Life and a Dog”.
Session: “Culture Alternatives Through the Eyes of ‘Besogon’: The Meaning and Significance of the Diamond Butterfly Film Award”
A session led by Nikita Mikhalkov, the initiator and driving force behind the Diamond Butterfly Film Award, was held at the General Staff Building of the State Hermitage Museum.
“The Eurasian Academy for Cinematographic Arts that we created is an initiative of our country, supported by our President and subsequently by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of Central Asian countries. The pinnacle of our Academy is the Diamond Butterfly Film Award, which accepts films from the countries of the Global South and BRICS countries. The most important thing is that a film should reflect the moral principles by which people live: morality, respect for the national culture of one’s country, and respect for its religious principles and traditions. In other words, everything that defines a person with a proper understanding of what is good and what is evil,” – Nikita Mikhalkov noted. – “And the motto of our film award is: ‘Any truth without love is a lie,’ because love, in the broadest and deepest sense of the word, lies at the foundation of everything.”
Participants in the session watched a themed selection of excerpts from Nikita Mikhalkov’s author programme, “BesogonTV”. Among the topics discussed were: what the Oscars are awarded for today; why virtually all Western awards are granted not for quality, but for criticism of Russia, China, Iran and other countries with an independent voice; what the Western world has become today and why the original stained-glass windows of Notre-Dame de Paris, which miraculously survived the fire, are being replaced with a satanic creation; how a modern God-fighting sect opposes the world’s confessions, and the connection between Orthodox Christianity and other traditional religions; and why representatives of different nationalities and confessions do not need the shamefaced erasure of the words “Russian” or “Orthodox” in order to coexist peacefully on the same land.
Nikita Mikhalkov spoke about how Western “culture” and its institutions replace art and morality with their ideology, and explained how the Diamond Butterfly — founded on honest dialogue between cultures and the preservation of traditional values — can counter this.
Screening of “Two People in One Life and a Dog”
In the evening, the Rodina Cinema Centre hosted a screening of Andrey Zaitsev’s “Two People in One Life and a Dog”. The film received two awards at the first Open Eurasian Film Award “Diamond Butterfly”: Svetlana Kryuchkova won Best Actress, and Alexander Adabashyan won Best Actor.
The event opened with a greeting from Olga Lyubimova, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, read by Anna Gribanova, Director of the Department of State Support for the Arts and Folk Art at the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation:
“Universal spiritual and moral values, humanism and respect for the cultural identity and traditions of different countries are the foundations supported and promoted by the Eurasian Academy for Cinematographic Arts, which is especially significant in the context of the Forum’s main theme: ‘United Cultures, Common Values’.”
As emphasized in the greeting, the Eurasian Film Award was created for open dialogue between creators and audiences through the art of cinema, and the screening of Andrey Zaitsev’s film was a vivid confirmation of this: the film’s audience success within the programme of international screenings of Diamond Butterfly participants in Belarus, Brazil, India, China, Laos and Serbia proves that cinema is a universal language, understood by audiences from different countries and continents.
Elena Golovnina, General Director of the Russian Culture Foundation, noted: “Everyone is accustomed to measuring the success of a film by box-office receipts or festival awards, but there is another measure — the sincerity, kindness and warmth that remain with the viewer after watching. This is exactly what we are looking for within the Diamond Butterfly. The film “Two People in One Life and a Dog” is one of those films that warms you. It is about simple but eternal values — about care and the ability to hear one another. And when new countries join the award, when directors from different cultures find a common language through these values, you understand: we are moving in the right direction.”
Raed Faridzadeh, Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Head of the Cinema and Audiovisual Affairs Organisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, thanked the organisers of the screening and noted the importance of the film award: “By telling of the joys, pain, suffering and experiences of a person, cinema creates a shared feeling, on the basis of which understanding of another becomes possible. In my view, this is the significance of such an event as the Diamond Butterfly. It is a different story, from a different point of view, which helps us better understand ourselves and the world around us.”
He recalled that, in Persian culture and literature, the moth and the burning candle are inseparably connected: striving towards light and truth, the moth approaches them so closely that, in the end, it burns in that light, finding salvation.
Director Andrey Zaitsev, addressing the audience, spoke about how the film’s conception took shape not around a plot, but around people whose experiences he wished to convey without any artifice.
Lead actress Svetlana Kryuchkova admitted that she saw her own fate in this story and shared with the guests of the screening what the Diamond Butterfly means to her:
“For fifty-six years, I have been engaged with the work of Marina Tsvetaeva. One of the symbols she especially loved was the butterfly: for Tsvetaeva, it meant the human soul. Therefore, when I learned that I would be presented with the Diamond Butterfly, I cried with happiness, because there is no purer award for me. It is not some invented figure, but the human soul itself. And to receive it from Nikita Mikhalkov, whom I have known for many years and who has always helped me in the most difficult moments of my life, is especially dear to me.”
Photos provided by the Russian Culture Foundation: