MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. Anton Megerdichev's historical drama ‘Heart of Parma’ - an adaptation of Alexey Ivanov's novel of the same name - will open the 44th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) on Friday. More than 230 films from 65 countries will be shown at this year's festival.
The film ‘Heart of Parma’ will be released in Russian cinemas on October 6. Alexander Kuznetsov, Elena Urbankova, Sergey Puskepalis, Yevgeny Mironov, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Vitaly Kishchenko and others star in this film, written by Sergey Bodrov, Ilya Tilkin and Ksenia Datnova.
Before the grand opening ceremony of the festival, which will be held in the movie theater ‘Rossiya’ (former ‘Pushkin’), the traditional press briefing of the festival’s President Nikita Mikhalkov will take place. The famous filmmaker will present statistics and talk about the most interesting, in his view, programs of the festival.
Main competition
The program of the main competition of this year's Moscow International Film Festival includes 13 films. Russia is represented at the competition by three films: ‘Ogorod’ (Vegetable Garden) by Larisa Sadilova, ‘Yunost’ (Youth) by Dmitry Davydov and ‘Camel Arc’ by Vitaly Suslin. The family drama ‘Beheading’ (Serbia), a film about the real story of the Romanian Orthodox preacher, who became a symbol of the struggle against the atheistic regime, ‘Crying voice in the desert’ (Romania), a love drama ‘Travels of Mastorna’ (China), the film ‘Hope’ (Turkey, Germany, Slovenia), as well as the films ‘Hives’ (Peru), ‘Maria. Angel of the Ocean’ (Sri Lanka), ‘Carpenters of Babylon’ (France), ‘Without Prior Arrangement’ (Iran), ‘The Visitor’ (Uruguay, Bolivia) and ‘Instinct’ (the Netherlands, Bangladesh) will compete for the main prize of the festival - a golden statuette of St. George.
The MIFF main competition jury will be headed by actor and artistic director of the State Theater of Nations Yevgeny Mironov. The panel of judges will also include producer Tandy Davids from South Africa, member of the Guild of Russian and Turkish cameramen Hayk Kirakosyan and holder of Grand Prix at the Berlin International Children's Film Festival, Russian director and screenwriter Andrey Kravchuk.
The Jury for Documentary Films and Short Films will also be working at the festival. The documentary film section includes ten films representing nine countries, including Russia, Mexico, the US, China, Iran and others. The short program jury will consider 18 films from 15 countries.
New ‘Russian Premiers’ competition
The main innovation of the Festival is the competition program, entitled ‘Russian Premieres’, named after the Diaghilev ‘Russian Seasons’. The program included ‘F20’ by Arseny Gerasimov, ‘Zhanna’ by Konstantin Statsky, ‘Healthy Man’ by Peter Todorovsky, ‘Cat’ by Boris Akopov, ‘Mikulay’ by Ilshat Rakhimbay, ‘Petropolis’ by Valery Fokin and ‘Like Man’ by Semen Serzin. Also, along with the films presented, domestic films from the main competition will compete on equal terms for the title of the best Russian film at the MIFF. The ‘Russian Premiers’ jury is headed by director Sergey Ursulyak. Along with him, films from this program will be judged by director and screenwriter Ivan Tverdovsky and producer Peter Anurov.
"This year the competition program of the Moscow Film Festival has doubled. In addition to the main competition, which is large, rich and very wide in geography, we have one more competition: ‘Russian Premiers’, where we present contemporary Russian films d’auteur. This contest will get a lot of attention, and I am appealing to our viewers to share it. Because this is a unique chance to be the first to see the films before they are released, and just feel the deep currents of developing Russian cinema, which will soon reveal itself to the world as a new Russian wave," Ivan Kudryavtsev, head of the Moscow International Film Festival selection committee, told TASS.
According to him, ‘Russian Premieres’ will indeed soon become something like Diaghilev's ‘Russian Seasons’ touring the world. "These are ‘Russian Premieres’ that can't help but tour, because cinema is an art that can appear anywhere in the world at the snap of a finger - you just send a copy. <...> The point is that the Russian premieres that will be bought here, at the MIFF, will become something like Diaghilev's ‘Russian Seasons’ in the countries to which they will be taken. If Diaghilev had an opportunity to bring 'Russian Seasons' to Paris, Russian premieres would be able to be shown to the audience in Paris, London, Beijing, New Delhi, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and so on", the head of the selection committee of the film festival said.
Out of competition programs
According to Kudryavtsev, the film festival will organize a special program ‘Very big cinema’, in which the audience for the first time will be presented outstanding films of world cinema shot in 70 mm. Among them are ‘War and Peace’ by Sergey Bondarchuk, ‘Tchaikovsky’ by Igor Talankin, ‘The Third Youth’ by Jean Dreville, ‘One day, the Nile’ by Youssef Chahine and others.
Earlier, the members of the MIFF selection committee reported that this year the festival viewers will see more than 230 films from 65 countries. Most of the films presented at the festival belong to India and France: 20 tapes from each country. China and the US will bring 18 films to the MIFF, Israel and Iran - 16 and 15 films respectively. The audience can also enjoy a retrospective dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Indian director Satyajit Rai, and see the films of the Iranian filmmakers Abdolfazl Jalili, Fereydoun Najafi, Hossein Jami and Afshin Hashemi in the program ‘Persian motifs’, and the ‘Tigers and dragons’, which includes films from the Asia-Pacific region.
The out-of-competition program of short films is called ‘Shot Set’. The 24 films included in this international section are divided into five screenings - five independent almanacs: ‘Every Happy Family’, ‘Intimate Scenes’, ‘Tender Age’, ‘Very Strange Things’ and ‘Inland Empires’. Another program, ‘Festival Cocktail’, will bring together winners and runners-up of major international screenings.
Pitching Debutants
The key event of the MIFF business area will be the Moscow debutants pitching, where 30 works will be presented in six nominations: ‘Full-length feature film’, ‘Short fiction film’, ‘Documentary film’, ‘Live action series up to 24 minutes’, ‘Live action series over 24 minutes’ and ‘Work-in-progress’. As the press service of the Fund to Support Regional Cinematography of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia previously reported, the winner of which category will receive a cash prize worth one million rubles ($16,563.15 - TASS).
Film industry representatives and public figures make up the expert commissions of pitching. For example, the documentary film commission is chaired by Sergey Miroshnichenko, art director of the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival. ‘Short fiction film’ jury is chaired by screenwriter Andrey Zolotarev, ‘Full-length feature film’ by Ivan Kudryavtsev, chairman of the MIFF selection committee, film journalist and producer, and the "Work-in-progress" batch is chaired by Yevgeny Gerasimov, head of the Moscow City Council Committee on Culture and Mass Communications.
‘Live action series up to 24 minutes’ will be evaluated by the commission chaired by producer Anton Kalinkin, and ‘Live action series over 24 minutes’ - by the jury headed by Alexey Gresslavsky, General Director of the Autonomous Nonprofit Organization ‘Institute for Internet Development’.
About the festival
The Moscow International Film Festival is the second oldest film festival in the world after Venice. The MIFF was first held in 1935. In 1995, it was announced that the festival would become an annual event, but it did not take place in 1996 and 1998. Since 1999. the MIFF has been held every year. The president of the festival is Nikita Mikhalkov. This year, the festival takes place from August 26 to September 2.
TASS serves as the festival’s official information partner.