Moscow International Film Festival announces official selection for 2015

Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) has announced its official selection for this year’s event, which includes films from Russia, France, Japan and Finland. Nick Sandow’s The Wannabe, produced by Martin Scorsese, is also to be screened at the festival, after MIFF’s programme director Kirill Razlogov announced that an agreement had been reached about its inclusion.

The official selection, consisting of 12 films this year, includes three Russian films: Andrei Proshkin’s Orlean; Alexander Mindadze’s Lovely Hans, Dear Peter; and Arventur by Irina Yevteyeva.

Despite going ahead this year, MIFF’s management earlier announced that this year’s programme was forced to screen fewer films in light of poor economic conditions in Russia. Just days before last year’s festival, veteran filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, who was the event’s director, announced that sanctions against Russia had hampered the event.

A number of film festivals in Russia have suffered funding constraints since the start of the Ukraine crisis. Director Fedor Bondarchuk, chairman of the trustee board of Russia’s main national film festival Kinotavr, confirmed this week that the festival will still go ahead this year, despite an economic downturn. “It is true that Kinotavr is facing problems, just like the majority of [Russian] festivals,” Bondarchuk told Russian news agency TASS. “But it will be held.”

MIFF will run from 19-26 June.