Unlike Cannes: The Moscow Film Festival.
Unlike in Cannes - the carpet, the last Friday before the few international stars and many other - internationally largely unknown - of 31 guests International Film Festival in Moscow, was rolled out, was not red, but toxic-green. Not (only) to be original - this is the corporate color of Russian mobile phone company Megafon, one of the main sponsors of the festival.
is in contrast to Cannes and many other in Moscow, despite its efforts, the organizers each time extremely, that which they hold just to pay for the possible next of kin of the most important film competition in the world. The expression "a good face on the matter" in this case would completely out of place.
for the "good face" makes in Moscow for several years Nikita Mikhalkov, one of the few Russian filmmaker of international renown. Here, the main host of the Moscow festival itself has been more than a decade, no new film shot more. Still, the inveterate charmer still enough connections in the film world and the Russian government has to keep up the Moscow festival halfway above water.
Halfway indicated. This year, however, Mikhalkov had to take from the previously overused propaganda white lie distance, the festival in Moscow belong to the "internationally accepted Category A" of the most prestigious film competitions in the world - alongside Cannes, Berlin and Venice. For the first time publicly acknowledged that it no longer a "Category" are - not "A", or otherwise any.
"Today we must fight with Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Montreal and San Sebastian to the competition films," the Moscow program director Kirill Raslogow admits in the "Izvestia". That about the Golden Lion of Venice has infinitely more weight than the gilded St. George plastic, the top prize in Moscow, is now no longer an issue.
However, it was by no means always the case. In the Soviet era was the Film Festival in Moscow, an event to the likes of Fellini, Rossellini, Malle Pollack sent quite like their contributions. Moscow's main prize of 1963 was in fact the first international award from Fellini's "8 ½ ". (Then there was, however, Nikita Khrushchev personally that the grand prize is shared with the Soviet competition entry to the title is remembered today almost no one yet.)
was in Soviet times, the festival in Moscow, one of the few niches, where international unnamed filmmakers were able to make noticeable - from Eastern Europe, but also from Asia, Africa and Latin America - in contrast to the snobbish events in Cannes or Venice. Many of today's international stars from Egypt and Algeria, Hungary and Poland, which now stand tall in Cannes and Berlin in the course have also acquired their first foreign recognition in Moscow. In this respect was the Festival in Moscow in the best sense of the word "alternative".
a new, shorter, flourished the International Film Festival in Moscow in the Era of Gorbachev's perestroika and the first years after reunification: international stars of the caliber of Robert De Niro directed the jury and simply apply this opportunity to a bit of Russian grab "Wind Of Change".
came after the era of disenchantment and mutual East-West disappointment - like that time in the Soviet-era influence the political process is the face of the Moscow Film Festival. Most international stars have now satisfied their curiosity about Russia - now they were only against fat fees for a few hours to Moscow. Until 2006 there was an enormously ugly scandal: The Austrian director Michael Haneke Star wrote a few weeks before the festival begins with the organizers that it was abandoning its role as jury chairman. He had to do something more important.
What I think is today's main problem of the Moscow Film Festival - both in general - not much different than the main problem of Russian land. This is a problem of identity. What is Russia today? What does it want? Where is it? To whom it belongs? Where does it go?
Well, for film buffs Moscow this year's festival also offers plenty of food: In several applications within nine days, a total showed more than 200 strip - new and old, experimental and conservative, award-winning and unknown. A little of this, some of that. But what it lacks is an idea, a clear line, a style, if you will.
Notable: Of the more than 1 500 journalists were accredited at this year's Moscow Film Festival, coming from more than 15 countries outside of Russia and the post-Soviet space. 2 (zwei!) international film stars were lured to the opening ceremony in Moscow. Both looked pretty lost here. Hanna Schygulla whispered into the microphone something banal about their "Russian soul" and Adrien Brody was clearly trying to save his fragile body from the bear hug Mikhalkov. Everything seemed hopelessly provincial, rather tasteless and at times embarrassing. (See RIA Novosti image report from the "green carpet" http://rian.ru/photolents/20090619/174891041.html ).
Also noteworthy: Mikhail Gorbachev came for the opening, but waived an appearance on the green carpet and sat through a back door to inject into the auditorium.
clear: To get noticed in today's colorful world, one must be different somehow. On the carpet color, it is here but not necessarily.
soon.
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