Italian films to be screened in Moscow festival

Moscow - Moscow's Cinema Oktjabr will host the eighth edition of "From Venice to Moscow", a festival traditionally organised by the Italian Cultural Insitute in Moscow, in cooperation with the Biennale of Venice. The event, to begin today and running until March 14, offers a broad selection of Italian films screened at the Venice Film Festival.

"This is an event which has become key in Russia's cinema festivals," said the Italian Ambassador to Moscow, Cesare Maria Ragaglini, today in Moscow, at a press conference to launch the event. The ten films making up the review come from the various sections of the Venice Festival. The film opening the event, tonight, is Giuseppe Piccioni's "Questi giorni" [These Days].

In Moscow right now are also film directors Massimo D'Anolfi and Martina Parenti, authors of the "Spira Mirabilis" documentary film participating in the competition. The Festival will be closed by Kim Rossi Stuart's film "Tommaso". "Even when contacts were not as intense, cinema was always an element assuring relations between Italy and Russia," said Ambassador Ragaglini. It is sufficient to mention co-productions such as "I Girasoli" ("Sunflower") with Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren, and the more recent work by film director Andrei Konchalovsky on the story of Michelangelo, which he will soon begin shooting in Italy.

The event, which is supported by Banca Intesa, will continue in Saint Petersburg (March 11-16), in Novosibirsk (March 14-19) and, for the first time, also in Kaliningrad (March 23-28).