Moscow Film Festival to feature 20 competitors in late June

Moscow will host an annual international film festival June 21-30, with about 20 pictures featuring in the competition program, the chairman of the festival selection committee said Friday.

Andrei Plakhov said the program would feature three Russian films - Larisa Sadilova's Nothing Personal, Vera Storzheva's Traveling with Pets, and Valery Ogorodnikov's Putina.

Three non-Hollywood American films have also been announced in the competition program, Plakhov said.

"It is a low-budget but very interesting film," he said presenting the film Viva, a debut by Anna Biller as both director and scriptwriter. The other two U.S. films are Broken English by Zoe Cassavetes, the daughter of renowned director John Cassavetes, and Noise by Henry Bean.

Other films in the competition program are:

- Ledsaget Udgang by Erik Clausen (Denmark)

- The Children of U.S.S.R. by Felix Gerchikov (Israel)

- International by Sirri Sureyya Onder and Muharrem Gulmez (Turkey)

- Mein Fuhrer by Dani Levi (Germany)

- Moliere by Laurent Tirard (France)

- Man's job by Aleksi Salmenpera (Finland)

- Opium by Janos Szasz (Hungary)

- By Riverside by Eva Neiman (Ukraine)

- Murder of the Inugami Clan by Kon Ichikawa (Japan)

- Eduart by Angelika Antoniou (Greece)

- Russian Triangle by Aleko Tsabadze (Georgia)

The festival will also run the film La Sconosciuta by Giuseppe Tornatore, starring Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport as a "Ukrainian girl, Irina, who finds herself in a critical situation in Italy and has to struggle for survival," Plakhov said.

The final list of competing films will be available after June 9.

The Moscow international film festival has been held since 1959. In 1972, it was registered with the International Federation of Film Producers Associations as a major and prestigious festival with the same status as the festivals of Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary and Venice. The Moscow festival has been held annually since 2000. (http://en.rian.ru)