Festival of Russian Films in Hollywood

A festival of Russian films organized by the Russian culture ministry and the Stas Namin Center opens in Hollywood on Friday.

According to a source in the Stas Namin Center, the project, which runs through April 24, was supported by US cinematographers and organized, on the US side, by the American Cinema Institute, the prominent producer Peter Hoffmann, etc. Head of the US Motion Picture Association Dick Valenti, Miramax Pictures President Harvey Weinstein, film producer Martin Scorsese, a well known actor George Clooney and others were invited to attend.

The festival of Russian films opens at La Dom, one of Hollywood's prestigious movie houses, with the US premiere of Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky's "House of Fools." The movie complex ArcLight, the venue that acts as the centerpiece of the event, will also house a photo exhibition of works by Andrei Tarkovsky and a show of drawings by filmmaker Sergei Eizenshtein.

Many of the films featured on the program will be presented by their creators or the actors playing the leading parts. "House of Fools" and "An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano," for instance, will be presented by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky and star actor Alexander Kalyagin, accordingly. The program also features classics like "The Battleship Potyomkin" and "Cranes Are Flying," some silent films of the early 20th century, a selection of cartoons by the famous animator Fyodor Khitruk, and one of Russia's favorites, "The White Sun of the Desert," as well as a few movies created by the new generation of film producers.

The closing ceremony will be staged at Mann's, a legendary movie house that is said to have opened the history of Hollywood. The film screend at the closing will be Sergei Eizenshtein's digital version of "Ivan Grozny" (Ivan The Terrible). The screening will be accompanied by the music Sergei Prokofiev wrote specially for this film, performed by the LA Symphony Orchestra.