The 19th annual Nika Awards ceremony took place in Moscow on Friday, March17. This year's awards yielded no real surprises. Aleksei Uchitel's character study Dreaming of Space, Aleksei Gherman, Jr.'s historical drama Garpastum and Fyodor Bondarchiuk's Afghan war epic and Company 9 managed to win multiple awards.

Company 9, which was the box-office sensation of last year in Russia, took Best Film, Best Music and some technical credits. Oddly, while Bondarchiuk was nominated for Best Director, Uchitel was not and the Best Director honor went to Gherman, Jr.

Uchitel's film took Best Actor for Yevgeny Mironov's performance and Best Cinematography for veteran Russian cinematographer Yuri Klimenko's fluid camerawork. ... [T]he Nika Best Actress award ... went to renowned St. Petersburg thespian Alisa Freindlikh, for her performance in the little-seen psychodrama On Upper Maslovka. ...

Established by the Soviet Filmmakers' Union in 1987, the Nikas are the oldest film industry awards in Russia and the former Soviet Union and take their name from Nike, the goddess of victory. The prize statuette is modelled after the sculpture of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. In 1990, a special Nika Academy was established to vote on the awards. Academy members who participated in 2006 numbered at 455,which is 71% of the academy's membership.