The film director Woody Allen (New York, 89 years old) was the star this Sunday of the International Moscow Cinema Week, where he declared his love for the film by videoconferencing War and peace of the Soviet director Serguéi Bondarchuk. The work addresses the disasters of war, but the American filmmaker spent this issue despite the country host of the invaded event for three and a half years. On the contrary, he was willing to roll in Russia. “If there were offers, I would sit down to think about a script to reflect how well one feels in Moscow and St. Petersburg,” said Allen.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died throughout these years, including artists. “It is a shame and an insult to the sacrifice of Ukrainian actors and filmmakers who have been killed or injured by Russian war criminals,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the social network in the social network on Monday X.
kyiv’s condemnation was accompanied by an image of a ruins Ukrainian city with the characteristic Woody Allen glasses printed in the foreground. “Culture should never be used to cover up crimes or as a propaganda tool,” added the Ukraine Foreign Ministry.
Allen was invited to the meeting by the son of the director of War and peacealso the filmmaker Fiódor Bndarchuk. The artist is a member of the Supreme Council of the Putin party, Russia Unida, and has participated in the electoral campaigns of the Russian president and the current mayor of Moscow, Serguéi Sobianin.
“I always liked Russian cinema. I had the pleasure of meeting Serguéi Bondarchuk several years ago in New York. I saw the Russian movie War and peace, that lasts almost seven hours, in a single day, ”said Woody Allen during his speech through a webcam.
The participation of Woody Allen in the act has been a stroke of propaganda effect for the Kremlin just a week after achieving another even more important milestone with the meeting held by Putin and Donald Trump at the American Base of Anchorage, Alaska. Moscow tries to show that international isolation and sanctions for the Ukraine War has failed, and attracting artists like Allen is key to Russian soft power. Although there are very few, Moscow also has another important appearance in September, a concert by singer Jason Derulo at the Stadium of the 2018 World Cup final.
Allen has offered his collaboration to the Russian film industry, absolutely controlled and censored by the Kremlin, when he crosses the moment of greater difficulties of his career to roll. The filmmaker was marginalized by the American film industry after his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow again accused him of sexual abuse at the end of the last decade. Dylan, who is 40 years old now, told these facts to his adoptive mother, Mia Farrow, for the first time with seven years. The director replied years after these accusations were loaded with “falsehoods.”
The burning filmmaker took advantage of his intervention to criticize the use of artificial intelligence in culture. “I don’t think (AI) can ever write anything like Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill or Fiódor Dostoievski because they also include their weaknesses and mistakes, and I don’t think a machine makes mistakes,” reflected the New York artist.
Woody Allen participated in the session World Cinema Legends. Other illustrious guests of the Russian festival have been the American actor and expert American Mark Dacascos, and Serbian director Emir Kusturica, a usual of cultural and political events in Russia despite the invasion launched against Ukraine, another Slavic country. Kusturica was appointed director of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army on February 21, 2022, just three days before the Kremlin launched its total offensive against kyiv.