Moscow Film Festival closed

The closing ceremony of the XXIV Moscow International Film Festival took place at the Pushkinsky cinema. Its main prize went to the Taviani brothers' film "Resurrezione" based on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. The ceremony, which took place in an extremely informal atmosphere, was attended by LYDIA Y-MASLOVA. At first, there was no sign of informality: the chairman of the jury, as usual, came onto the stage with a gold chain around his neck. This time it turned out to be Chingiz Aitmatov in a checkered shirt and a striped tie. The post-Soviet film festival inherited the chairmanship from the Soviet regime - in former times, Aitmatov was twice on the jury. “Dozens, hundreds of films were participants in various branches of the Moscow Film Festival,” said the chairman. Everything could have turned out completely official if they had not forgotten to put a piece of paper with the protocol on Aitmatov, according to which he was supposed to announce the laureates.
The Chairman was not embarrassed when he noticed her absence. However, I had to calm down the American artist Holly Hunter, who appeared on stage and was waiting for the winner of the prize for best actor.
Distracting music started playing, Nikita Mikhalkov nervously slid to the edge of his chair, and the general director of the Moscow International Film Festival, Renat Davletyarov, came up to him and said something with a laugh. Having gone to the edge of the stage and exchanged a few words with the girl responsible for the protocol, Aitmatov realized that he should not expect favors from her and would have to conduct the ceremony with his bare hands, with the help of only a pleasant male voice announcing the names of the winners on the radio.
The first of them was the favorite Finnish actor of the Russian people, Wille Haapsalo, from Alexander Rogozhkin’s film “Cuckoo”. The second winner was Mikako Ichikawa, a young Japanese woman who played a girl who falls in love with her classmate in the film Blue.
Then the missing protocol appeared, but still a playful mood firmly took over the hall, and the audience greeted every remark of any speaker with hysterical laughter. Polish classic Jerzy Kawalerowicz awarded the prize for directing to his colleague Alexander Rogozhkin, for whom the prize was received by producer Sergei Selyanov, actors Viktor Bychkov and Finnish Anni Kristina Juuso. “I won’t detain you,” Chingiz Aitmatov sent the no longer needed Kavalerovich from the stage, who had already become alert to help him read the protocol. Kavalerovich was replaced by the beautiful Jacqueline Bisset, who honestly admitted: “I don’t understand what’s going on” and was given over to two Iranians who received a special prize for the melodrama “Call of the Earth” (Arezou-Ha-Ye Zamin). Of her Moscow impressions, Jacqueline Bisset especially noted the lunch with President Putin.
The awarding of the main “Golden George” to the television adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection” was not exactly expected: many until the last minute were confident in Rogozhkin’s “Cuckoo” as the absolute favorite. But the hero of the evening turned out to be Vittorio Taviani, who left his brother Paolo in Italy and came to Moscow, according to Nikita Mikhalkov, “without a visa, without anything, in just a cap.” Taviani, in his cap, quickly ran away, saying that he also did not understand anything, since he knew neither Russian nor English, but only realized that he was in Moscow. “You created an incomparable film. I don’t think that such films can be put on the same level,” Chingiz Aitmatov thanked Taviani’s brother.
Then it was the turn of Nikita Mikhalkov, who had already pulled himself together and figured out how to beat the initial hitch. “What a festival, damn it,” said Mikhalkov with such warmth in his voice that for a second it even seemed as if nothing would be to blame for the rigging. “Three years ago I would have died in this chair if this had happened. But now I’m happy, everything is fine. We have our own family, and we do all this for ourselves,” the MIFF president continued to strike a touching note. As a lyrical digression, we can describe the family scene that took place a few hours earlier in the Manege, when Renat Davletyarov abundantly peppered his speech with the interjection “fuck” addressed to the chairman of the jury of Russian criticism, Valery Kichin. Representatives of the Guild of Critics, who gave their main prize to Kira Muratova’s “Chekhov’s Motives,” finally dared to do what they had been dreaming of for several years—to express the selection committee’s displeasure for the low level of the competition program and award Roman Prygunov’s film “Loneliness of Blood” with a diploma “for unjustified presence in the competition of the International Film Festival." But this small internal showdown remained behind the scenes of the event, which so brilliantly turns problems into elements of directing.

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 111/P dated 07/01/2002, page 1

Authors:

Lidiya Maslova

No protocol, family style