24th Moscow International Film Festival

Introduction

Some highly plausible reasons were given by the organizer of the 24th Moscow International Film Festival (21-30 June, 2002) for scaling down the budget to approximately half of last year's 3 million rubles (circa $1 million as fluctuating exchange rates go). According to one insider, the budget remained the same as before, but some outstanding debts from previous years had not yet been paid off. Also, since a blowout festival is planned for the 25th anniversary in 2003, the 24th outing was stylized as a modest showcase of better things to come. Nikita Mikhalkov, MIFF's president, opened and closed the festival in Gorky Park, on the very spot where he has regularly expressed hopes to erect a festival headquarters of appropriate representative proportions in the near future. Hollywood VIPs (Bob Rafelson, Harvey Keitel, Holly Hunter, among others) were invited to breakfast with President Vladimir Putin. General director Renat Davletyarov was given a complete bill of operating health by FIAPF's general secretary Phyllis Mollet. And programming director Kirill Razlogov corrected last year's oversight by inviting no less than three Russian films to compete for the St. George Statuette.

Despite the improvements, however, festival regulars expressed feelings that Moscow is still too mired in the traditions of the past and thus has a long way to go before it can boast of a festival niche between Cannes and Venice as the premiere midsummer film event on the calendar. In fact, two other Russian international festivals, Sochi to the south and St. Petersburg to the north, contend for the same quality Russian fare - and both are scheduled before Moscow. Indeed, it was St. Petersburg that bagged Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark, the Cannes entry that was "one-shot” in the Hermitage  and Winter Palace with a cast of thousands. Furthermore, the Karlovy Vary festival, scheduled on the heels of Moscow, grows annually in prestige as more deluxe hotels open in one of Europe's favorite spas to house comfortably an increasing numbers of media professionals, some of whom had been "miffed” by MIFF this year.

A veritable feast of world cinema

Moscow's strength is its broad range of entries programmed in separate sections by curators who know their film history and have toured the major festivals. Besides the Main Program, the responsibility of Kirill Razlogov,  the Panorama featured Special Screenings, Previews, Debut Filmmakers, Trends in World Cinema, Contemporary Russian Cinema, National Hits, Norwegian Cinema Today, Exotica (fringe cultures), Afghan Knot (films on Afghanistan), and Retrospective Tributes - to Bob Rafelson, Stanley Kubrick, Roger Vadim, Grigory Chukhrai, and Unknown (Boris) Barnet. Provided you knew your way through the metro labyrinth, a veritable feast of world cinema was at your beck and call at scattered venues around the city. But you didn't have to go far to catch the Unknown Barnet shows: some screenings took place in the newly installed Film Club under the roof of the Manezh, the city's exhibition hall housing the festival headquarters.

Resurrezione, by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Resurrezione (Italy/France/Germany), a cumbersome two-part TV adaptation of Tolstoy's "Resurrection" (published 1899), was awarded the St. George Statuette by an international jury headed by writer-diplomat Chingiz Atimatov. Previously rejected by Cannes and Venice, the updated version with an international cast didn't fare much better than the original Mikhail Shvejcer (Moisei Schweitzer) version filmed 40 years ago in 1961 as a two-part spectacle with socialist realist leanings. Timothy Peach plays Prince Neckliudov in love with Katya Maslova (Stefania Rocca), a prostitute accused of theft and murder, who had previously worked as aservant girl at his aunt's villa and had been compromised by the young nobleman.

Wishes of the Land, by Vahid Musaian

For the second year in a row, the Special Jury Prize was awarded to an Iranian entry. Vahid Mousaian's Are zou-ha-ye zamin (Wishes of the Land), a debut feature film by a documentary filmmaker, is the tragic story of a young girl in a rural community who defies tradition by rejecting the family's chosen husband to decide for herself whom she wants to marry, in this case a sensitive young shepherd.
Along similar lines, Monika Krzywkowska, awarded  Best Actress, plays a young woman who wins the affection of a young man wrestling with a dubious vocation to the priesthood in Krzysztof Zanussi's Suplement (Poland), the title referring to Zanussi's desire to retell the same story written for his previous feature, Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (2000), this time from the perspective of the woman. Suplement also shared the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize.

Kukushka, by Alexander Rogozhkin

As for the best film on view at MIFF, Alexander Rogozhkin's Kukushka/Cuckoo (Russia) well deserved its multiple citations - Best Director Award, the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize, and the Audience Award - and should have walked away with the St. George Statuette as well. Set in September of 1944 in the idyllic Lapp country of northern Finland, the tale features three individuals - a Russian and a Finn (Willie Haapsalo, Best Actor Award), both soldiers, and a Lapp woman, who lost her husband in the war - in an hilarious tragicomedy of mutual misunderstandings in the days just before Finland and the Soviet Union signed a peace agreement. Witty dialogue, humorous narrative twists, and a real discovery in Anni-Kristina Usso, a nonprofessional Lapp, assure that Cuckoo will find an audience worldwide. Another festival highlight was the world premiere of Bob Rafelson's The House on Turk Street (USA/Canada/Germany), a bizarre film noir adaptation of a short story by Dashiell Hammett with Samuel L. Jackson as a detective with diabetes and Milla Jovovich as a Russian gunmoll-pianist with a yen for classical music. And Arvo Iho's Karu Suda/Heart of the Bear (Estonia/Russia/Germany/Czech Republic) confirms once again how the wilds of Siberia can inspire an accomplished cinematographer (Estonia's Rein Kotov). 

AWARDS

International Competition St. George Statuette (Grand Prix)

Resurrezione/ Resurrection by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Italy/France/Germany)

Special Jury Prize

Are zou-ha-ye zamin/Wishes of the Land by Vahid Mousaian (Iran)

Best Director

Kukushka/Cuckoo by Alexander Rogozhkin (Russia)

Best Actress

Monika Krzywkowska, Suplement/Supplement by Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland)

Best Actor

Willie Haapsalo, Kukushka/Cuckoo by Alexander Rogozhkin (Russia)

Special Awards

Actor Harvey Keitel

International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize - ex aequo

Kukushka/Cuckoo by Alexander Rogozhkin (Russia), Suplement/Supplement by Krzysztof Zanussi  (Poland)