Russian documentary won the Gold Remi award at the 52th Worldfest Houston film festival.

From April 5 through the 14, the 52nd Worldfest independent film festival took place in Houston, Texas. Worldfest Houston is the world’s oldest independent film festival. It was founded by an award-winning director and producer Hunter Todd to support independent filmmakers. Worldfest is the third largest independent film festival in North America after the festivals in San Francisco and New York.

In 2019, Worldfest organizers received more than 4,500 entries for 10 main categories and over 200 subcategories. More than 720 filmmakers from 74 countries of the globe came to Houston to participate in Worldfest 2019.

Worldfest is known for presenting the first award to Steven Spielberg for “Best Student Film” in 1972. Worldfest also discovered George Lucas, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, the Cohen brothers, and other celebrities.

For the thirteenth year in a row, Russian-American Business magazine has been presenting one of the most prestigious awards at the Worldfest independent film festival in Houston, the prize for the best foreign feature film. This year, the prize was awarded to Matthew Rosen’s film Quezon’s Game from the Philippines. In receiving the award on the stage from the managing editor of Russian-American Business, Matthew Rosen said that he was immensely glad to win this prize.

A Golden Remi of the Worldfest 2019 film festival in the “documentary” category was awarded to a Russian film Stand Up Against Mafia Together, produced by the International Police Association of the Moscow region. The film’s author is Police Lieutenant General and the former head of the Russian Interpol Ivan Sardak. The film tells the story of how the Russian Police and the FBI conducted a joint operation against the Russian mafia. As a result of the coordinated work of Russian police officers and the FBI agents, a large diamond-exporting scam was exposed and more than USD20 million was returned to the Russian treasury.

Ivan Sardak could not come to Houston. The Police General received the American award at a Moscow ceremony of the Russian DetectiveFEST film festival, which was held in late April. The former head of the Russian Interpol noted he was proud that a film telling of how Russian and American law-enforcement officers worked together won an award from a prestigious American film festival. “We still have nothing to argue about, we have one common enemy: global organized crime, which we continue to fight to this day,” Ivan Sardak said to the crowd’s applause.