Russian-American Business magazine and a St. Petersburg jewelry company Alfa plan to award the UNUSUAL prize to the best foreign FILM at the international festival.

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In the end of April, the City of Houston will live at the pace of the WorldFest film festival. WorldFest’s cultural importance goes far beyond the state lines of Texas. WorldFest was founded 45 years ago by an award-winning producer and director Hunter Todd to present a quality film festival for independent filmmakers. Over the years, WorldFest discovered such cinema stars as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, John Lee Hancock, Randall Kleiser, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Robert Townsend, The Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and David Lynch.

WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival will continue with a totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 21 - 30, 2006 unspooling at the AMC Meyer Park 16 Theaters. WorldFest plans to screen 55-60 feature film premieres alone, with a complete and absolute emphasis on the American and International Independent feature films and with a continuing annual spotlight on an individual country and its films.

WorldFest is one of the oldest and largest film & video competitions in the world, with more than 4300 category entries received from 37 countries in 2005. Each year, the film festival gains more and more fame the world over.

Russian-American Business magazine is proud to present one of the most prestigious prizes of the festival – an award for the best international motion picture. To make the precious award, the magazine worked together with the Alfa Jewelry Company from St. Petersburg, one of the best jewelry makers in Russia. 

St. Petersburg Alfa Jewelry Factory was started in December 1992, a rather risky time for a new jewelry business to be formed. Today, the Alfa factory is among the largest jewelry producers in Russia with more than 250 highly qualified specialists. While preserving the traditions of the famous Carl Faberge, its craftsmen create pieces of extraordinarily high artistic value. Alfa produces jewelry items of practically all genres of the gem-cutting art. The beauty and the luxury of silver and gold items made with diamonds, precious stones, and pearls excite everyone.

  The craftsmen at Alfa approached the work of creating the WorldFest prize with great delicacy. The initial contest between the artists for the best model of the award featured designs of various types, from classic to avant-garde. The drawing of Svetlana Dobrolubova won in the competition. The prize she designed is shaped like a Faberge Egg.

- The business card of the Alfa factory is the egg-shaped miniature pendants, - Svetlana Dobrolubova said. – Today, Alfa creates more than 500 different kinds of Faberge-egg pendants. We tried to make the WorldFest prize reflect not only the traditional values, but also the modern trends of jewelry fashion.

The award egg is made of a special alloy with gold. It features decorations of color enamel and “Swarovski” strazs. A large team of designers and jewelers worked on the prize; a number of jewelry techniques were utilized. It takes from 3 to 5 months to produce the award. The cost of the egg is difficult to assess. The diligent labor that Alfa’s craftsmen put into their work makes their final product worth thousands of dollars. The president of Alfa Nikolai Shaidulin is hopeful that the winner of the International Feature Film category will value and appreciate the work of Russian jewelers.