Care to piggyback a quartet of Russian film festivals? It's much
easier than you can imagine. These days, your odyssey on a Russian
summer festival circuit begins at the Russian Pavilion in the Marché
du Film at Cannes. Newly opened, and serving as an unofficial Russian
film office (an official one is still in the talking stage), the
Russian Pavilion is well worth the visit, particularly for those
Russian film buffs badly in need of visa support for multi-entry
festival visits. Located in the Cannes village on "pavilion row" just
down the way from the American and beach-side oases, the Russian
Pavilion can be easily reached at the end of that regal row, where a
flight of stairs leads up to a eye-fetching view over the harbor.
There, on most any day during this year's Cannes festival, you could
meet one or more of the kingpins of

the four major Russian film festivals, to wit:
Alexei Gorzinov, promoting the Zerkalo
International Film Festival in Ivanovo (May 26 to June 1);
Alexander Rodyansky, heralding the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival (June 7-15);
Nikita Mikhalkov, proclaiming the Moscow International Film Festival (June 19-28); and
Alexander Mamontov, plugging the St. Petersburg Festival of Festivals (June 23 29).

Among these festival politicos, Alexander Rodyansky was the key
Russian personality on the Croisette. He met with Cannes festival
director Thierry Frémaux to discuss the possibility of programming his
multi-million-rubel production of The Inhabited Island, based on a
popular science-fiction tale by the brothers Boris and Arkady
Strugatzky and directed by Fyodor Bundarchuk. Budgeted at a reported
$36 million, The Inhabited Island ranks as the most expensive
production in Russian film history. Conceived as a two-part epic, with
special effects along Matrix lines, it currently runs at over four
hours in postproduction news releases. Whether Alexander Rodyansky
will present the film at next year's Cannes festival is another
question altogether. Since he recently served as a jury member at the
Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick put in an early bid for the film to
premiere next February in Berlin.

Second Zerkalo International Film Festival in Ivanovo
This year, the drum was beaten pretty loudly at the Russian Pavilion
for the new Zerkalo (read: Mirror) International Film Festival in
Ivanovo. New to the festival landscape, Zerkalo is sometimes referred
to as the "Andrei Tarkovsky Festival" – because the Russian director
was born here, while its title refers to his autobiographical
masterpiece, Zerkalo (Mirror) (USSR, 1976). Now in its second year,
and running on the tailend of the Cannes film festival, journalists
would have to have good connections at the Russian Foreign Ministry to
wrangle a quick visa to attend Zerkalo. I know, because I tried – and
fell flat on my face. However, according to Alexei Gorzinov, Zerkalo's
general director, Cannes visitors this year could catch a flight to
Ivanovo via Moscow from Paris via Nice on the day after Cannes (May
13-24) closed. Ivanovo is a short 125-mile drive from Moscow to the
northeast.

Last year, when the festival was initially launched, it proved to be
such a success that 400 guests immediately applied for accreditation
to this year's event. Not surprising – for its president is actress
Inna Churikova, the doyenne of Russian stage and screen. And a fully
restored version of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (USSR, 1969) was billed
as one of the festival's key attractions. But the real reason for the
festival's success is the splurge of multiplexes scattered across
Russia. Ivanovo, together with neighboring Pilos and Yurievets, can
boast of eight cinema halls, offering 100 screenings to circa 15,000
spectators. Altogether, 130 films were screened at the Second Ivanovo
Film Festival – 67 features, 25 documentaries, 38 cartoons and shorts.
Eleven films from nine countries competed for festival laurels. Among
the 16 Russian features programmed by Sergei Lavrentiev in the
Competition and the New Russian Films section were six Russian
premieres. "The first Zerkalo festival inspired many directors to
start making meaningful cinema," said Alexei Gorzinov in a festival
flyer. "It is now prestigious, especially for young filmmakers, to
simply get a diploma as participant of the festival." Apparently, he
was referring to the dirge of shoddy film fare hitting the home
screens of late.

The Grand Prix was awarded to Kurdish director Hiner Saleem's Sous
les toits de Paris (Under the Rooftops of Paris) (France, 2007).
Starring Michel Piccoli in this offbeat comedy about a cranky old man
who inherits a rundown flat atop the roofs of Paris, Under the
Rooftops of Paris shifts into high gear when a younger roommate pushes
the octogenarian's patience to the limit during a sweltering hot
summer. Awarded Best Director at Zerkalo, Dorota Kedzierzawska's
Jestem (I Am), her fourth feature film, is arguably her best. The
story of a sensitive 11-year-old boy committed by his mother to an
orphanage, he runs away to live on an abandoned river-barge somewhere
in backwoods Poland and make his way by collecting and selling
scrap-iron. I Am was inspired by a real-life news story. Two awards
went deservedly to Csaba Bollok's Iszka utazasa (Iska's Journey)
(Hungary, 2007): Best Actress to Maria Varga, plus the Prize of the
Russian Critics Guild. The heart rending story of a teenager forced to
collect scrap-iron to pay for the drinking habits of her mother and
stepfather, Iska's Journey begins when the girl tries to run away and
ends when she falls in the hands of a mafia band that specializes in
child kidnapping and trans-border prostitution.

Citations for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema were awarded
to Dutch cult director Jos Stelling and Russian veteran actor Alexei
Petrenko. Jos Stelling's uproarious Duska (Netherlands, 2007), the
story of an Amsterdam screenwriter and film critic imposed upon by an
eastern European movie conman, whom he had once befriended at a
backwoods Russian film festival, was a hit at Ivanovo. Alexei Petrenko
is best known in Russian cinema for playing the monk Rasputin in Elem
Klimov's previously banned classic Agoniya (Agony) (USSR, 1981). Want
to know more about Zerkalo? Then ask Faye Dunaway. She was a Guest of
Honor in Ivanovo.

Ivanovo Awards

Main Prize
Sous les toits de Paris (Under the Rooftops of Paris) (France), dir Hiner Saleem
Best Director
Dorota Kedzierzawska, Jestem (I Am) (Poland)
Best Actor
Alessandro Morace, Anche libero va bene, (Along the Ridge) (Italy),
dir Kim Rossi Stuart
Best Actress
Maria Varga, Iszka utazasa (Iska's Journey) (Hungary), dir Csaba Bollok
Awards for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema
Jos Stelling, director (Netherlands)
Alexei Petrenko, actor (Russia)
Award of Festival President
Elena Nikolaeva, actress (Russia)
Award of Russian Film Critics Guild
Iszka utazasa (Iska's Journey) (Hungary), dir Csaba Bollok
Audience Award
Foreldrar (Parents) (Iceland), dir Ragnar Bragason

19th Sochi Open Russian Film Festival

Sochi, likened to Cannes with its palm trees and luxury hotels, is
not just the principal showcase of new Russian cinema, but also the
favored resort of Russian millionaires. Add to this the forthcoming
Winter Olympics in 2014, and you have a city that's rapidly changing
its image almost daily. While attending this year's 19th outing, the
talk of the "new metropolis" reached science-fiction dimensions. A
luxury hotel will be build on an island in the Black Sea. A
double-tiered highway is planned to eliminate traffic jams on the
current two-lane highway that takes an hour to reach downtown Sochi
from the airport. And a brand international airport will host guests
without a stopover in Moscow.

As usual, Sochi Kinotavr (as it's also known) welcomed 1500 guests,
mostly Russian. The competition, programmed by Sitora Alieva, featured
15 films, including one documentary. "It is a good year, considering
the interest shown by several international festival directors," she
said in an interview. "But young producers and directors still have a
lot to learn. Unfortunately, many aspire to get into Kinotavr in order
to justify the capital investments of sponsors – a kind of self PR."
Among the sidebars were New Russian Shorts, Summer Euphoria
(programmed by critic Andrei Plakhov), Special Screenings, Cinema on
the Square (commercial blockbusters), and the second half of the
"50/50" Series (Best 50 Russian and Soviet Films and Directors). Sochi
is also known for its lively Russian film market. This year, however,
the market was just wrapping when international guests arrived. Still,
a dozen glossy magazines proclaimed hot attractions booked by a
hundred or more multiplexes recently built in all the major cities
across Russia. One cover story and festival poster featured a new
political actioner titled Hitler Kaput! in a James-Bond-like trailer
format. And DVDs of new Russian films that were not selected for
programming in the festival were handed out like cupcakes to
international guests.

Sochi opened with Alexander Proshkin's Zhivi i pomni (Live to
Remember), a screen adaptation of popular writer Valentin Rasputin's
novel with the same title. Set in a Siberian village, it's the story
of a Russian soldier who deserted during the last days of the Second
World War and now hides away in a shack near his native village. Only
his forgiving wife knows about his whereabouts, which leads to a
family tragedy and shame for the village. For this light-handed film
fare, Alexander Proshkin was awarded Best Director. The best film of
the festival, and a sure bet to make the rounds of the international
film festivals, was Mikhail Kalatozishvili's Dikoye polye (Wild
Field), awarded the Best Screenplay (the late Pyotr Lutzik and Alexei
Samoryadov), Best Film Music (Alexei Aigi), and the"White Elephant"
Award of the Russian Critics. The scenario team of Lutzik and
Samoryadov are best known for their masterful Okraina (Outskirts)
(Russia, 1998), directed by Lutzik a year before he died. Leaning
purposely on a prior tradition of socialist realism, Outskirts
narrated in powerful images a modern-day uprising in the provinces
against corruption and bureaucracy in the capital. By contrast, Wild
Field comes across as an absurd, fantasy-packed drama about a young
doctor who just opened his office at an outpost on the steppes of
Central Asia. Crazy things happen almost daily – a drunken worker, a
shepherd struck by lightning, a sick cow, a beauty of the steppes just
stopping by for a visit – all under the sharp observed by a mysterious
hermit who pops into view every now on then on the top of a nearby
hill. A film of striking poetic visual images.

Bakur Bakuradze's Schultes (name of the film's lead role) was awarded
Best Film. Previously screened at Cannes in the Directors Fortnight
sidebar, the film has been nominated by FIPRESCI Critics for the
European FIPRESCI Award. Set in a large Russian city (apparently
Moscow), Schultes is a skillful pickpocket thief who, together with a
boy assistant, works for a mafia-like organization on special
assignments. More of a robot than a human, he cares for his ailing
mother and occasionally visits his war-invalided brother in a clinic
for stress-syndrome soldiers. Gradually,as his life style unfolds, we
see just what had happened to bring this talented sportsman to this
stage in his lost life.

Sochi Russian Awards

Best Film
Schultes, dir Bakur Bakuradze
Special Diploma
Novaya zemlya (Terra Nova), dir Alexander Melnik
Best Debut Film
Nirvana, dir Igor Voloshin
Best Actress
Ksenia Rappoport, Yuriev den (Yury's Day), dir Kirill Serebrennikov
Best Actor
Jethro Skinner, Plyus odin (Plus One), dir Oksana Bychkova
Best Director
Alexander Proshkin, Zhivi i pomni (Live to Remember)
Best Screenplay (post mortem)
Peter Lutzik, Alexei Samoryadov, Dikoye polye (Wild Field), dir
Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Best Cinematography
Ilya Demin, Novaya zemlya (Terra Nova), dir Alexander Melnik
Best Film Music (Tariverdiev Prize)
Alexei Aigi, Dikoye polye (Wild Field), dir Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Best Short Film
PAL/SECAM, dir Dmitry Povolorsky
Special Mentions
Rba (The Fish), dir Alexander Kott
Pyatnashki (Tag), dir Natalya Uglitskikh
Russian Critics "White Elephant" Award
Dikoye polye (Wild Field), dir Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Development of Cinema in Russia Award
Alexei Gherman, film director
Armin Medvedev, film fund administrator

30th Moscow International Film Festival

Viewed from the rosy side of its facilities, the 30th Moscow
International Film Festival (19-28 June 2008) should rank high as a
major event on the calendar. Seen from the professional side, however,
this year's MIFF still has a way to go before it catches up with other
A-category competition festivals. That it lags so far behind Cannes,
Venice, and Berlin – some festival veterans say even Karlovy Vary,
Montreal, and San Sebastian – is a bit of a mystery. Simply because
Moscow has everything a festival needs to prosper: a media
headquarters in the 8-screen October Theater multiplex, an efficient
press center in the functional Khudozhestvenny cinema, a backup venue
for gala evenings in the plush Pushkinsky cinema, an informative
300-page catalogue, a glossy daily journal printed in Russian and
English, and young volunteers whose English is their second language.
So what's missing? The money, say informed festival insiders. For
some reason, the budget for this year's festival was not approved by
government officials until just two months before the opening night.
Too late to select top quality films, to assure the presence of VIPs,
and to organize a representative film market. Also, most trade
journalists received only a four-day invitation. Despite that singular
budget drawback, however, MIFF 30 did set some new in-house standards
– if only because of the popularity of program director Kirsi
Tykkylainen that enabled her to book competition entries on short
notice, plus the fact that the anniversary sidebars programs had
already been prepared well in advance.

The international jury, headed by Liv Ullman, awarded the Golden
George (aka St. George Statue) to a worthy Iranian entry: Reza Mir
Karimi's Be hamin sadegi (As Simple As That), an intimate sketch of a
day in the life of a devoted housewife. Similarly, the Silver George,
Special Jury Prize, was awarded to Marion Laine's Un coeur simple (A
Simple Heart) (France), a screen adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert
classic about a maid devoting herself unselfishly to others without
receiving much for her pains in return. With just four days to play
festival catch-up, I found myself drifting towards the archival
discoveries in the Socialist Avant Gardism sidebar. Here, in a small
screening room at the October multiplex, you could see 18 previously
shelved and recently restored Soviet films from the silent period
through the "thaw" of the 1960s. The series included such legendary
films as Kote Mikhaberidze's Chemi bebia (My Grandmother)
(USSR/Georgian Republic) (1929), an hilarious satire on Soviet
bureaucracy, and Mikhail Kalatozov's Gvozd v sapoge (Nail in the Boot)
(USSR/Agitprop) (1931), a propaganda parable about a tribunal in which
the accusers themselves are found guilty for having manufactured
faulty boots used during wartime maneuvers.

Another gem was found in the Perspectives section: Igor Maiboroda's
documentary Rerberg i Tarkovsky – Obratnaya storona "Stalkera"
(Rerberg and Tarkovsky – Reverse Side of "Stalker"). Running at 140
minutes, this insightful tribute to the talented Soviet
painter-cinematographer Georg Ivanovich Rerberg (1937-1999) focuses on
his disruptive collaboration with Andrei Tarkovsky during the making
of the latter's Stalker (USSR, 1979), based on a science-fiction,
Chernobyl-like story by Boris and Arkady Stugatsky. As chronicled in
Maiboroda's documentary, Tarkovsky and Rerberg had an acrimonious
falling-out during the shooting of Stalker – so much so that Rerberg
refused later to discuss the matter at all during his lifetime. For
Tarkovsky had persuaded the Soviet authorities to let him shoot a new
version of Stalker, this time with a new cinematographer, Alexander
Knyazhinsky. In this "reverse side" version, Maiboroda offers
documentation collected principally from eyewitnesses to tell a
different and private story of offended honor and professional pride.
Hereafter, film historians may be compelled to reassess the discarded
first version of the Stalker masterpiece.

Moscow Awards

Main Competition
Golden St. George – Best Film
Be hamin sadegi (As Simple As That) (Iran), dir Reza Mir Karimi
Silver St. George – Special Jury Prize
Un coeur simple (A Simple Heart) (France), dir Marion Laine
Silver St. George – Best Director
Javor Gardev, Zift (Moth) (Bulgaria)
Silver St. George – Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor (USA), dir Tom McCarthy
Silver St. George – Best Actress
Margherita Buy, Giorni e nuvole (Days and Clouds) (Italy/Switzerland),
dir Silvio Soldini
Perspectives Competition
Cumbia callera (Cumbia Connection) (Mexico), dir Rene U. Villareal
Special Prize for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema
Takeshi Kitano (Japan)
FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize
Odnazhdy v provintsii (Once Upon a Time in the Provinces), (Russia),
dir Katya Shagalova
Russian Critics Prizes
Main Competition
Be Hamin sadegi (As Simple As That) (Iran), dir Reza Mir Karimi
Perspectives Competition
Odin kadr (One shot) (Denmark), dir Linda Wendel
Russian Film Clubs Federation Prizes
Main Competition
Zift (Moth) (Bulgaria), dir Javor Gardev
Russian Program
Ne dumay pro belykh obezian (Don't Think About White Monkeys), dir Yury Mamin
Audience Award
For My Father (Israel), dir Dror Zahavi
Special Prize "I believe. Konstantin Stanislavsky" for Outstanding
Acting Achievement in Career and Devotion to Principles of
Stanislavsky's School
Isabelle Huppert (France)

Diplomas for Support of Russian Cinema
Patting yourself on the back for getting an award is one of those
win-lose propositions you would just as soon sidestep. Because, to be
perfectly honest, I was just one of a half-dozen journalists singled
out for a diploma "for Support of Russian Cinema" at the recent 30th
Moscow International Film Festival. Others – some of whom deserved the
award more than myself – included Kazuo Yamada of Japan, Derek Malcolm
of Great Britain, Galina Kopanova of the Czech Republic, Klaus Eder
and Hans-Joachim Schlegel of Germany. On the other hand, thanks to a
stroke of good fortune, I have been visiting Russia and the former
Soviet Union on a regular basis since 1976. A stretch of 30 years.
This sprawling country and fabulous filmland had been the favored
corner of my Eastern European playground as a roving reporter. Some
cities I grew to know like the back of my hand: Moscow, St. Petersburg
(formerly Leningrad), Sochi, Kiev, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku,
Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Almaty, and elsewhere along the way. Often, I
wrote feverishly just to keep up. Mostly about filmmakers I respected,
many known personally. The list is long and incomplete: Andrei
Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov, Elem Klimov and Larisa Shepitko,
Alexei Gherman and Alexei Gherman Jr, Andrei Konchalovsky and Nikita
Mikhalkov, Alexander Sokurov and Otar Yoseliani, Sergei Bodrov and
Juris Podnieks, Gleb Panfilov and Nikolai Gubenko – to mention just a
few directors whose films have enriched my life.

My first invitation to attend the Moscow International Film Festival
came in 1976. Together with Variety's Paris-based correspondent Gene
Moskowitz, I became acquainted with nearly all of the important
figures in that remarkable "Russian New Wave" movement. When I noticed
that no one else was making straightforward documentaries about
Parajanov and Klimov, then I picked up a camera and did it myself. (My
documentaries on these legendary directors are available on DVD from
Kino International.) Also, when I sensed the importance of Larisa
Shepitko's Ascent (USSR, 1977), I worked hard to get the film invited
to Berlin – and then waited anxiously in the wings until it did,
indeed, win the Golden Bear. Those years between the mid-1970s and the
mid-1980s were exciting, to say the very least. What's more – they
were almost exclusively mine as an American journalist for the
"trades": Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Moving Pictures. (When I first
visited the Moscow festival, Gene Moskowitz handed on a piece of
proverbial wisdom: "Don't speak Russian even if you know how – your
translator-guardian will willingly fill in the gaps, and you'll learn
a hell of a lot more!" Perhaps in deference to Gene, I have continued
following that same rule of thumb up to the present day.)

The quest to find talent in the "new Russia" continued after
Gorbachev's rise to power. From the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, I have
traveled the festival backroads to cities formerly envisioned only in
wistful daydreams. At this juncture, I was helped immensely by several
Moscow colleagues to keep up with the changing times under the yoke of
my fragmented knowledge of Russian language and culture. Thank you,
Andrei Plakhov and Sergei Lavrentiev, Raisa Fomina and Evgenia
Tirdatova, Sitora Elieva and a score of others in my busted memory.
When Andrei Plakhov handed my the tribute citation at MIFF 30, tears
welded in my eyes. Blessings like this don't come more than once in a
lifetime.