The EU Delegation to Russia resumes the European Film Festival in Moscow

The Delegation of the European Union to the Russian Federation is resuming the European Film Festival, which this year will be held online from November 1 to 15. EU Ambassador to Russia Roland Galarag spoke about this at a briefing in Moscow.

The film festival under the auspices of the European Union has been held in Russia for 15 years, but in 2022 this tradition was interrupted due to the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine and political tensions between the EU and the Russian Federation. It was decided to resume the festival this year. According to Mr. Galaraga, “today the political situation has not changed, relations between the EU and Russia have not improved, but we believe that, despite this, there remains a place for cultural interaction, as well as the interest of the peoples of Europe and Russia in dialogue with each other.” .

This year the festival will be held online for the second time. The previous such experience in 2021 turned out to be successful: in 32 days, the program’s films were watched by 30 thousand people from 80 Russian cities. The film screening will open on October 26 at the Moscow cinema “Illusion” with an offline screening of the comedy “Ramona” by Spanish director Andrea Bagni – this choice is due to the fact that Spain currently holds the EU presidency. Accordingly, the closing film will be the Belgian film “The King of the Belgians” by Pieter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth in honor of the next chairman country.

In addition to them, the festival program includes another 19 feature films, documentaries and animation films from 25 European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and others, as well as two co-productions: “Whaler” by Philip Yuryev produced in Russia, Poland and Belgium and “Farsi Lessons” by Vadim Perelman produced in Russia, Germany and Belarus (both films were released domestically in 2020 and 2021, respectively). All films will be available for screening in the original language with Russian subtitles in the Coolplay online cinema. Mr. Galarag emphasized that all formalities required by Russian legislation were observed for their demonstration.

Since February 2022, the number of cultural cooperations between Russia and the EU has sharply decreased, and the festival will be one of the first attempts to establish them again. In the future, the representative office hopes to resume holding other events in Russia, although it considers it “unlikely” for specific cultural figures to personally participate in them.

Yulia Shagelman