David Schneiderov: Unknown directors from cinematically unknown countries

This is how film critic David Shneiderov assessed the results of the 45th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), which ended last week, during a press conference at NSN.

According to David Shneiderov, the MIFF “almost completely lost face”:

“The loss of face is partly due to the almost complete absence of foreign guests. Although I do not really understand: if we are so quickly refocusing on the Pacific region, then there are great directors there (for example, Chinese directors Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou; excellent Chinese actors). However, no one came from China, the chairman of the jury was the Indian film director and producer Rahul Ravel, who always made mass-produced films. And in general, the competition program was such that it was an acquaintance with unknown films of unknown directors from unknown countries. It seemed to me that the documentary program was much stronger.”

As the film critic noted, one very interesting work (feature film) was presented at the festival out of competition, which was called “A Silent Life: The Story of a Woman in Black”:

“This is an American movie, the main director is a Russian guy (Vladislav Kozlov. – S.I.). The film also features Italian and American actors. This is a film about Rudolph Valentino – about the great American actor of silent cinema, from which, in fact, the history of Hollywood began. A Russian immigrant girl made a star out of him. Vladislav Kozlov, who made this movie, made subtitles in Russian for all silent parts with translation into English. By the way, this is about the abolition of culture! He made the titles in Russian as a tribute to the Russian girl who made Rudolph Valentino a star. Everything else that I saw at the festival is second-class production. There was a complete absence of stars, and not only imported ones, but also Russian ones. There were very few Russian stars.”

Yes, as David Shneiderov clarified, 11 films from 16 countries were shown in the main competition at the MIFF, but all this was a little-known movie by little-known directors of the wrong level. At the same time, according to him, there were only two Russian films in the competition:

“In general, I had a feeling that we needed to cover up the story with the international festival and make a festival of Russian cinema. Because it’s not quite smart to show foreign films of the level that was shown.”

True, according to the film critic, things are also not going well with import substitution in the field of cinema, as most of the creators of domestic films are still trying to go to Hollywood, unsuccessfully trying to copy Hollywood samples. In addition, those films that are produced in the Russian Federation even with the support of the state will not be enough for the survival of the domestic film distribution industry, since before the imposition of sanctions, at least 260 films were released on average per year, of which 80 were domestic. The question is, how to replace the 180 films that have fallen out, because so many are not filmed in the Russian Federation? Therefore, now some of the cinemas have already closed, some have switched to the weekend mode (they work only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

Sergei Ishkov.

Photos provided by the MIFF press service