Moscow to open with Kitano prize
Festival celebrates 30th year
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With a balance of European, Russian and world features in the main competition, which includes Iranian director Reza Mir Karimi’s “As Simple as That” (Be hamin sadegi), China’s Li Xin’s “War of the Shore” and Albanian director Besnik Bisha’s “Mao Tse-tung,” fest president Nikita Mikhalkov claims its jubilee year is one of the best ever.
“We hope that this year's festival serves as the base for many fascinating discoveries for everyone who visits,” Mikhalkov said in comments posted on the festival’s website.
“Our national cinema has gained a sense of reality and is not embarrassed any more about the everyday problems that our country faces. Looking back just a few years, we can remember how most feature films were hard to distinguish from cheap TV series. Russian films were rarely chosen for international A-level festivals then, and this was understandable.”
Although two Russian films are in the main feature competition — “Sad” (Garden) by Sergei Ovcharov and “Odnashdy v provintsy” (Once Upon a Time in the Provinces) by Katya Shagalova — only Ovcharov has drawn any international attention with a Golden Bear for best short film in Berlin nine years ago.
Moscow struggles to program films by top local talents, most of whom prefer to enter their work for the annual national film awards at Kinotavr in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi, which runs early June as is more highly regarded as a showcase for local film.
The Moscow International Film Festival runs June 19-28.
