email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

MOSCOW 2017

The Moscow Film Festival kicks off

by 

- Darkland, Selfie, Star Boys and The Best of All Worlds are competing in the Russian gathering

The Moscow Film Festival kicks off
Darkland by Fenar Ahmad

The Moscow International Film Festival is ready to kick off its 39th edition today, 22 June, and it will then draw to a close next Thursday, 29 June.

This year, the jury in charge of giving out the Saint George Awards to the films selected in the main fiction competition includes Spanish artist and director Albert Serra, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg funding advisor Brigitta Manthey, Italian actress Ornella Muti and Finnish director-producer Jörn Donner.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Europe is well represented in the competition, with Fenar Ahmad’s Danish thriller Darkland [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Spanish director Víctor García León’s Málaga-premiered comedy Selfie [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Víctor García León
film profile
]
, Finnish filmmaker Visa Koiso-Kanttila’s family drama Star Boys [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and the German-Austrian co-production The Best of All Worlds [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, directed by Adrian Goiginger. The rest of the films vying for the awards are the Russian titles Buy Me by Vadim Perelman, Thawed Carp by Vladimir Kott and The Bottomless Bag by Rustam Khamdamov, as well as Fikret Reyhan’s Yellow Heat [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Liang Qiao’s Crested Iris (China), Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s No Bed of Roses (Bangladesh/India), Kim Bong-han’s Ordinary Person (South Korea), Ryutaro Nakagawa’s Summer Blooms (Japan), and Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina’s Symphony for Ana (Argentina).

The festival’s documentary competition will welcome Almost There [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Swiss filmmaker Jacqueline Zünd and The Paris Opera [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, a French-Swiss co-production helmed by Jean-Stéphane Bron.

Several sidebars – namely, Spectrum, Euphoria of the Fringes, 8 ½ Films, Missing Pictures and Russian Trace – have selected an interesting number of European films, such as Calin Peter Netzer’s Ana Mon Amour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Călin Peter Netzer
film profile
]
, Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Aki Kaurismäki
film profile
]
, Bruno Dumont’s Jeannette, the Childhood of Joan of Arc [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile
]
, Robin Campillo’s BPM (Beats Per Minute) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arnaud Valois
interview: Robin Campillo
film profile
]
and Elina Psykou’s Son of Sofia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elina Psykou
film profile
]
, in order to give Russian audiences a peek at the continent’s current film trends.

Moreover, the festival will also save some space for European cinema in its Masters section, where the new oeuvres by Italian filmmakers Michele Placido (7 Minutes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michele Placido
film profile
]
) and Gianni Amelio (Holding Hands [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianni Amelio
film profile
]
) will be screened, alongside Fatih Akin’s In the Fade [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
film profile
]
, Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismael’s Ghosts [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Arnaud Desplechin
film profile
]
, Jacques Doillon’s Rodin [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Thierry Frémaux’s documentary about the Lumière brothers, Lumière ! [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]

Other special programmes, such as a retrospective dedicated to Russian master Andrei Konchalovsky and a section dedicated to Russian VR pieces, round off this year’s selection.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy