2023-04-20 23:51:43
On April 20, the 45th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) began its work, returning to its traditional April slot – the force majeure 44th review was held last August, less than a year ago. The renewed team of selectors headed by Ivan Kudryavtsev for the second time, despite the foreign political situation, managed to put together an extensive program with broad international participation. However, the festival, as expected, has become paler: no world stars, and almost all announced high-profile premieres are Russian-made.
As the previous festival showed, content difficulties do not yet affect attendance. According to organizers, more than 30,000 spectators visited the MIFF in August 2022, about the same as a year earlier.
The tilt of the film festival towards Asia is becoming more and more noticeable – both in the competitive sections and in the business program. The chairman of the jury of the main competition was the Indian producer and director Rahul Ravel (Twins, Caprice), who in his youth worked with Bollywood legend Raj Kapoor and even published a book about him. As part of the business platform, co-production pitchings are planned with both India and Iran.
The festival will be opened by a new drama by Boris Khlebnikov (“Arrhythmia”, “An Ordinary Woman”) “Bullfinch”, which will be released in wide Russian distribution on June 8. The closing film is the Spanish sports drama 47 Seconds about the national water polo team (the release date has not yet been determined).
Still class A
Back in March 2022, the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) suspended the accreditation of the MIFF as a class A festival (confirms the high quality of the organization of the film review). But the review still tries to comply with all the necessary criteria – in particular, it remains focused on international premieres in competitive sections (only screening in the country of origin is allowed). So, out of 10 foreign films of the main competition, only two do not have such a status. The drama “Dead Man’s Bride” (Romania, France) has already been shown in Calcutta, and the fantastic dystopia “Fi 1.618” (Bulgaria, Canada) participated in the New Film Festival in Montreal and the CineLibri show in Sofia (where it won the prize for best costumes).
A third of the main competition was provided by Latin America – four films at once: “The Way to Success” (Argentina), “Black Moon” (Mexico), “Those Who Are Below” (Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia), “Three Brothers” (Chile, Argentina). Europe, in addition to the aforementioned Dead Man’s Bride and Phi 1.618, is also represented by the Serbian thriller Trail of the Beast. The dramas The Smell of Sin (Bangladesh), Paradise Lost (China), Fragile Flowers in the Stream of Days (Japan) will come from Asia to Moscow. Taking into account the out-of-competition program, according to official statistics, the geography of the MIFF includes more than 60 countries.
In the main jury, the geographical proportion is shifted towards Russia and the East, but there is also Latin America. Actors Alexei Guskov (Silver Skates), Svetlana Ivanova (Pregnancy Test), Cannes Film Festival laureate actress Samal Eslyamova from Kazakhstan (Aika) and Colombian director Ciro Guerra (Waiting for the Barbarians) will work under the chairmanship of Rahul Ravel. ).
If earlier the festival had a wide media presence due to the arrival of stars of the first magnitude – if not as participants in the competition, then as members of the jury – today the festival is sold through the thematic unity of the program. As Ivan Kudryavtsev said at a press conference held in early April, the key topic of the review will be the relationship between fathers and children. The selector linked the relevance of the issue with self-isolation during the pandemic, which locked families within four walls and forced them to look for a common language.
The trend can be traced from the opening film – the drama “Bullfinches” by Boris Khlebnikov based on the story of Georgy Vladimov “Three Minutes of Silence” about the conflict of generations on a fishing boat. Further, the theme goes through all competitive programs and, finally, continues in the new non-competitive section “Difficult age”. It includes nine films about how children grow up today in different parts of the world – from Italy to Mongolia.
The theme of “difficult age” in the main competition is also explored by two paintings by Russian participants – “14+. Continuation” by Andrey Zaitsev (winner of the MIFF-2022 with “Siege Diary”) and “First Love” by Svetlana Proskurina (winner of “Kinotavr”-2010 with the drama “Truce”). The first of them is the sequel to the 2015 Internet hit “14+”, which has already gained 140 million views on YouTube. There, Gleb Kalyuzhny played his first role (“Vampires of the Middle Band”, “Difficult Teens”), who today has become one of the most sought-after young actors. In the new film, life will pose new questions for the hero of Kalyuzhny – in particular, whether he should join the army or not. The focus of Proskurina’s “First Love” is the story of the relationship between two female colleagues, young and older, who witnessed a crime in a sanatorium and decide to start their own investigation.
The topic of social stratification in the provinces also occupies a huge place in the competition. In The Smell of Sin, a father from a poor family forcibly passes off his daughter as an undertaker. “Those who are below” is a Time.news of the struggle of a proud peasant for a spring that was drained by a rich neighbor. “Black Moon” tells how a provincial family is torn to shreds by political differences. A frequent motif is the meeting of two worlds, urban and rural (provincial). The French come to the Romanian village to shoot a documentary film about their rituals (“Dead Man’s Bride”). Three brothers return home to Patagonia, and their lives are rapidly going downhill (“Three Brothers”). During the years of communist Yugoslavia, a journalism star travels to a small town to write a report about a brutal murder (“Trace of the Beast”).
Sense education
Since last year, within the framework of the Moscow International Film Festival, a new program of domestic cinema, Russian Premieres, has been launched – one of the potential successors to Kinotavr. The section, which is still looking for its own face, has actually become a debut competition this year: six films out of seven are the first or second film for the director. The exception is the drama “Pardon”, a film adaptation of Mustai Karim’s story about a soldier of the Great Patriotic War, who is tried as a deserter. For the enthusiast of Bashkir cinema, Ainur Askarov, it has already become the fifth feature film in his directorial career. Two participating films (“Ada”, “Secret Attraction”) were produced by the VGIK-debut film company. This studio was established by VGIK, and, as the name implies, its task is to help university graduates with their first film.
In Russian Premieres, the theme of difficult age receives a feminine accent. Ada is 12 years old, she lives with her mother in a small town on the banks of the river and falls in love for the first time (Ada by Stanislav Svetlov). Sonya is 14. She finds out that her mother lied to her for many years about the death of her father, and runs away from home (“The Edge of the Broken Moon” by Svetlana Samoshina, written by Natalya Meshchaninova, director of the series “Alice Can’t Wait” and “My Mom’s Penguins”). Wife is 16. Having survived the trauma, she spoils relations with others, but changes for the better thanks to a new acquaintance – the head of the robotics circle (“Tin Head”, the second directorial work of Ivan Kapitonov, an experienced horror producer – on his account “The Bride” and ” Pishcheblok”). Finally, Veta is over 18 – she is studying to become an actress and is trying to melt her childhood traumas into creativity (“Secret Attraction” by Stasia Venkova).
Two other “Russian premieres” stand somewhat apart in the competition – the thriller “Fog” by Natalia Gugueva about the disappearance of meteorologists at a remote weather station and the drama “Montevideo Unit”, the second directorial work of actress Tatyana Lyutaeva, about an unjustly convicted surgeon (Alexey Serebryakov from Leviathan) , who, after serving time, returns home and tries to improve relations with his family.
The jury will evaluate the work of colleagues, consisting of screenwriter Andrei Zolotarev (“Attraction”, “Satellite”), actress Anna Snatkina (“Actresses”) and headed by director Alexei Uchitel (“Matilda”).
Documentary revolution
The competition films of the documentary program reflect the sharp turn that the world documentary cinema has experienced over the past 4-5 years. The revolution is connected not only with the change of generations, but also with the influence of new media, Grigory Libergal, the selector of the non-fiction competition, explained in a conversation with Vedomosti. Competing with professional documentarians are yesterday’s amateurs with YouTube experience or related types of visual creativity that violate the dogma and conventions of the old documentary. Both the scheme of production and the scheme of distribution are changing, and with them both the film language and the problematics.
In the Chinese film “In the Shaolin Temple” the life of Buddhist monks is illustrated by a non-obvious soundtrack that places what is happening in non-obvious contexts. The Israeli docudrama about the Holocaust Anna and the Egyptian Doctor (about how an Arab doctor posed as a supporter of the Nazis and saved a Jewish girl dressed as a Muslim) uses animation, and its director Talia Finkel is not a passive observer, but in fact one of the main actors persons.
“This proves what we say all the time. If in feature films the evolution – at least for today – is more or less completed or suspended, then in the author’s documentary films, development continues at full speed, ”the expert is sure.
Russian documentarians provided about half of the list – three out of seven. These are “Fathers” by Yuri Mokienko (about how a family organizes a documentary film festival in the countryside), “Let Me Win” by Svetlana Muzychenko and Maria Finkelstein, the official film of the Special Olympics Winter Games in Kazan, raising the theme of inclusiveness through the personal stories of athletes. As well as Yulia Bobkova’s “Vladimirsky Central” (the premiere of the film was announced on the Kion video service on April 27) from the series about Russian prisons (two other films in the series – about “Crosses” and “Butyrka” – can be viewed at out-of-competition screenings).
In addition to Anna, there is another biographical film on the program – La Singla (Germany, Spain) about a flamenco dancer deaf from birth. From Iran, the festival will feature a story about a rehab for drug addicted girls and its colorful hostess (“House of Mother Shoku”).
Out of competition – within the framework of the traditional MIFF section “Free Thought” – a Russian documentary film by Daria Ivankova “Mikhail Gorshenev. The Legend of the King and the Jester is a biography of the leader of the legendary rock band (the online premiere will be on Okko, the exact date has not yet been announced). In total, Free Thought contains seven paintings from various countries, from Thailand to Brazil.
Watch on streaming
In the non-competitive program of the review – united in 16 programs – there are also curious premieres. In particular, the “First Series” section, supervised by film critic and program director of the Pilot festival Yegor Moskvitin, will tell you what to watch on streaming platforms in the near future. The absence of a jury and prizes is not the only difference between the “First Series” and the “Pilot”. In the “First Series”, for example, there is no ban on the participation of new seasons of the “old” series. So, along with the novelties – the thriller “Cat” (Start), the comedy “RAIcenter” (“Evie”), the drama “Save the only son” (Kion) and the action-detective “I’m leaving beautifully!” (Wink) – the first episode of the third season of the Premier hit World! Friendship! Gum!”.
“The idea of the “First Series” is to imagine what the new Russian “normcore” will look like (mainstream. – Vedomosti). The selection was based on the hypothesis that the most popular stories in the coming years will be content that comforts and distracts, returns the viewer to the family and invites you to peer into your reflection on the screen. Therefore, all the series in our program are 100% “spectator” stories,” Moskvitin told Vedomosti.
In addition to the First Series, Moskvitin also oversees the original thriller and horror section Wild Nights, the ideological continuation of Horror Fest, another film review headed by a film critic. In this section, along with novelties from Mongolia, Vietnam, India, for example, the American adventure film “Jojo’s Incredible Adventure (and his splinter sister Avila)” about the survival of children in the forest, filmed back in 2015, is announced, but in Russia it will be shown first.
As always, the festival tries to please the widest possible audience, including those who are sure that the times when good films are made are long gone. Especially for them, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Sam Peckinpah’s Dangerous Travelers will be shown on the big screen. A selection of topical animation “Multiverse” awaits the family viewer.
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