Translated material
The pile is not small
200 films will be shown at the Moscow Film Festival
So, today, June 19, the Moscow International Film Festival will open for the thirtieth time. The opening will be held solemnly, as it should be in a country where they play hockey and football so well and win Eurovision. On the star trail, in addition to Nikita Mikhalkov and other familiar Russian stars, local stars will also appear. Will Smith and Charlize Theron, invited to the world premiere of the film “Hancock,” which will proudly be shown in Moscow two weeks earlier than in the world, should add shine to the ceremony. The chairman of the jury, Ingmar Bergman actress and famous Liv Ullman, guarantees the cultural status of the event. Takeshi Kitano will achieve cult status - he will be awarded an award for achievements in the field of cinema. Then there will be a reception, fireworks, and finally the main thing that usually makes up the essence of the festival will begin - the cinema will begin.In recent years, the MIFF has not been very encouraging with bright events in this area, but thanks to the efforts of dedicated selectors, it was possible to watch a lot of films, each of which was interesting in some way. Not so much for those who go to the cinema for material for later discussion in the smoking room at work, but for true fans, those for whom for some reason it is important to know what exactly is happening in world cinema in all its compartments. In general, if you go to a festival for the love of cinema, then there is always something to see.
The competition, as a rule, is not particularly popular, with the exception of Russian films. This time there are two of them in the competition - “The Orchard” (it is known that the cherry one) by Sergei Ovcharov, based on the play by Chekhov, and “Once Upon a Time in the Province” by Ekaterina Shagalova. Another film from Ukraine, but with Russian actors and in the Russian language, is a metaphorical drama by Roman Balayan, who again directed Oleg Yankovsky (this time in the role of a man who knows how to fly and teaches this art to young people). Flying in reality in this film is a symbol of freedom of spirit, and the loss of this ability in a foreign land is the loss of a gift...
It is known that the two most famous and popular programs of the MIFF are “Eight and a Half” by Pyotr Shepotinnik and “Moscow Euphoria” by Andrei Plakhov.
The eight films in Pyotr Shepotinnik’s program mostly seem to have been taken from the archives of the Venice Festival. For example, the painting “One Hundred Nails” (2007) by 76-year-old Italian classic Ermanno Olmi is a kind of detective story about a humanities scholar suspected of desecrating a library. Or the film based on the biography of Bob Dylan “I’m Not There” by Todd Haynes (whose best film is still “Far from Heaven”), which last year in Venice received a special jury prize and a “Silver Lion” for Cate Blanchett in the role of Bob Dylan.
Estonian director Veiko Õunpuu's "Autumn Ball" was also awarded in Venice - "for opening new horizons in world cinema." The horizons opened up from the windows of cheap apartments in an ordinary residential neighborhood, where six characters live quite ordinary lives, nothing particularly noticeable, and therefore interesting.
About the same inconspicuous people are discussed in Bogdan Slam’s film “Happiness,” recognized in 2005 as the best Czech film and received the main prize at the festival in San Sebastian. This is also a simple story, filmed in a documentary style. In the magazine “The Art of Cinema” it is written about her like this: “A portrait of bedraggled compatriots who vegetate in devastation and poverty, in an industrial dump, surrounded by the remnants of socialism - in a “beautiful, ugly” space.” There was no “Happiness” in Venice, just as Lucianu Pintilie’s film “Nicky and Flo” was not shown there, but in 1998 this director, the forerunner of the “new wave” in Romanian cinema, received a special award at Mostra for the film “Terminal Station - Paradise".
For fans of cult dreamer and stylist Guy Maddin, his 2006 black-and-white film Etched in Memory will be screened and will no doubt confuse and delight everyone once again.
However, there are also very recent paintings. The animated film "Fear(s) of the Dark" is a visual depiction of fears captured by a group of artists who typically draw comics. It’s really impressive: there a person grows from the inside with insects, people are poisoned by dogs, classmates torture a girl, in general, all the individual and collective horrors of the subconscious are realized.
The American “Skull on Wheels” was filmed, edited and produced by one person - young director Adam Wingrad for $2 million. The hero took pills and saw ghosts. Whether in reality or in a drug-induced dream, he is very scared.
As usual, the films collected in this program are little explained by retelling the content, since the main thing in them is the way of artistic thinking.
The eight films chosen by Andrei Plakhov, on the contrary, are the latest premieres and do not need any special introduction, because they are well known. Firstly, this is “The Silence of Lorna” by the Dardenne brothers, who received only a prize for the screenplay at Cannes this year (the film was purchased by Cinema Without Borders and will probably someday be released in a limited number of copies). The same company purchased two more films from the program: the feature debut of the 18-year-old daughter of the famous Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf, “Buddha Collapsed from Shame” (“Crystal Bear” for the best feature film in Berlin 2008, Grand Prix in San Sebastian 2007 ) - the story of an Afghan girl who wants to go to school; Abdellatif Keshi’s fashionable French film about Tunisians living in France, “Couscous and the Red Mullet,” was awarded in Venice and received a Cesar Award, and most importantly, the public really liked it for its light breathing (it can be seen in Moscow box office since June 26 ).
The debut of Valeria Gai Germanika “Everyone will die, but I will remain” became an event both in Cannes and at Kinotavr, and a lot of people will clearly gather to see it in Moscow without any announcements.
Also on the program are Mikael Haneke's new Funny Games, a frame-by-frame remake of the 1997 hit remade for Americans, and Fados, a film by 75-year-old Carlos Saura, dedicated to the Portuguese musical style of fado and its contemporary performers. The film “Against the Current” by Bulgarian director Zlatinka Ruseva is also musical, where representatives of all Balkan countries demonstrate both music and the mysteries of the Slavic soul.
The real mystery of that very soul is presented by a Ukrainian participant in the program: the film “Las Meninas” was directed by avant-garde artist Igor Podolchak, he himself wrote the script, and this is how the Ukrainian press wrote about it: the film “is based on a real story that a psychiatrist he knew told about his patients. History, however, has undergone a great many changes. The main character, a thirty-year-old man, uses his illnesses as a tool of terror and subjugation of loved ones, turning the life of his entire family into an endless and strange ritual of serving his needs. Against the backdrop of ritual and a bizarre interior, complex relationships unfold, the contact of one personal freedom with another.” The film's budget is small, to put it mildly, there is no plot as such, but it was shot by the famous cameraman Sergei Mikhalchuk, and as a result the film was included in the competition at this year's Rotterdam Film Festival.
As for the rest of the MIFF programs (there are nineteen in total, not counting the two competitive ones), keep an eye on the schedule. Retrospectives deserve special attention. As for the rest, from the 200 films of the festival, everyone can choose the movie that they like.