Circumstances of the present – Kommersant

On April 20, the 45th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) started. After last year’s worries, associated with an almost complete change in the composition of its organizing committee and selection committee, as well as, according to their representatives, with a “difficult political and cultural context”, the festival is back on track and feels quite safe. True, there is still no great public interest in it, but this aspect of the organizers has not been very worried for several years now. About what films will be shown at the festival in the competition and outside it, tells Yulia Shagelman.

Presenting the program of the current MIFF, the chairman of the selection committee, Ivan Kudryavtsev, boasted that “the level of response to the proposal to participate in the program of the Moscow Film Festival has increased.” According to him, this year the geography of the participating countries has expanded by 10% compared to the past – however, in 2022 there were 65 of them, and in this year it sounds blurry “more than six dozen”, apparently, in this “more” the desired interest. Separately, Mr. Kudryavtsev mentioned the countries of Latin America, from which more than 30 films are presented in the festival programs, China, which is listed as the producer of 23 films, France, which had a hand in 18 films, as well as Spain, the USA, India and Iran.

The main competition included 12 films, of which two are Russian.

A drama about growing up “14+. Sequel” directed by Andrey Zaitsev, whose “Siege Diary” won the main prize, as well as the audience award at the MIFF in 2020, is a sequel to his film “14+” (2015), which tells about the same hero, who is now four years older years, and life poses even more difficult questions for him than in adolescence. “First Love” by Svetlana Proskurina combines melodrama and thriller in the story of a crime witnessed by two heroines who came to rest in a country sanatorium.

In addition to these paintings, The Smell of Sin by Nural Adam Atik (Bangladesh), The Dead Man’s Bride by Cornel Georgita (Romania, France), Paradise Lost by Geng Wenyaxiao (China), The Road to Success by Sebastian Rodriguez (Argentina) , “Trace of the Beast” by Nenad Pavlovich (Serbia), “Those Who Below” by Alejandro Quiroga (Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay), “Three Brothers” by Francisco Paparella (Argentina, Chile), “FI1.618” by Teodor Ushev (Bulgaria, Canada), “Black Moon” by Tonatyu Garcia (Mexico) and “Fragile Flowers in the Stream of Days” by Yutaka Tsunemachi (Japan).

A jury chaired by Indian director and producer Rahul Ravel will choose the best film worthy of the golden “St. George” from them.

The jury also includes Russian actors Alexei Guskov and Svetlana Ivanova, their colleague from Kazakhstan Samal Yeslyamova and Colombian director Ciro Guerra.

Traditionally, within the framework of the MIFF, there will also be short and documentary film competitions, in the first of which 16 films are presented, and in the second – seven. The juries of these programs were chaired respectively by the Chinese director Hao Yun and the Italian cinematographer Giorgio Cugno.

Last year at the Moscow Film Festival for the first time a separate competition for Russian films “Russian Premieres” was organized. The experience was recognized as successful, so it will be continued – however, in the first approximation, this year’s program looks weaker, but perhaps we are in for surprises. In total, seven films entered the competition: “Hell” by Stanislav Svetlov, “Tin Head” by Ivan Kapitonov, “Montevideo Unit” by Tatyana Lyutaeva, “Pardon” by Ainur Askarov, “Secret Attraction” by Stasia Venkova, “Fog” by Natalia Gugueva and “The Edge of the Broken moon” by Svetlana Samoshina. They will be evaluated by a jury led by director Alexei Uchitel, and screenwriter and producer Andrei Zolotarev and actress Anna Snatkina will help him in this mission.

The opening film of the MIFF was Boris Khlebnikov’s Bullfinch. He and his co-screenwriter Natalya Meshchaninova were inspired by the production novel about the crew of a fishing boat “Three Minutes of Silence” by Soviet writer Georgy Vladimov.

Only the action has been moved to the present day (although in the three years that the film spent in production, its realities also turned out to belong to a bygone era), and the secondary line in the book of two young trainees from the nautical school is brought to the fore, one of whom was played by son of director Makar Khlebnikov. The result was a picture shot at the intersection of genres: an almost documentary chronicle of the everyday life of a tough male team and a story of growing up, which focuses on the inevitable conflict of generations, which the circumstances of the new time only exacerbate.

The festival will close on April 27 with the Spanish-French sports drama “42 Seconds” by Alex Morello and Dani de la Ordena, which tells about the events of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, ​​which the chairman of the selection committee called “a real adrenaline movie.”