MOSCOW — A Mexican film won first prize Friday at the Moscow International Film Festival, which took place as major Western studios boycott the Russian market and as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third year.
“Shame,” a film by director Miguel Salgado and co-produced by Mexico and Qatar, was the most awarded film at the festival, which began in 1935 and has been held annually since 1999. This year’s edition featured more than 240 films. from 56 countries.
In his victory speech, Salgado praised the festival as one of the most important in the world and added that he was happy to see his film, a thriller, screened so widely and that it was a “great gift” to see so many people. moved by it.
The festival’s program director, Ivan Kudryavtsev, told state news agency ITAR-Tass that more than half of this year’s entries came from countries whose governments are considered hostile to Russia.
After Russia sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, major studios in the United States and many European countries suspended distribution of their films to Russia. The cut was a serious blow to Russian movie theaters. Before the conflict began, the country’s cinemas received about 70% of their income from Hollywood films, according to press reports.
The festival program included several smaller American films, including “Hundreds of Beavers,” presented as a supernatural story of a 19th-century trapper’s battle with animals, and “Enter the Clones of Bruce,” about the exploitation films that followed the death. from martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
Films from other countries opposing the war in Ukraine include Romania, France, Italy and Germany.
The president of the jury for the festival’s top prize, the Golden St. George, was Fridrik Thor Fridriksson of NATO member Iceland, whose “Children of the Wild” is the only Icelandic film ever nominated for an Academy Award.