There will be a rare showing of the relatively unknown movie "Opening in Moscow" by D.A. Pennebaker, a proponent of the freestyle form cinema verite "Opening" was filmed in and around the 1959 American National Exhibition in Sokolniki, where then-U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had their impromptu "kitchen debate" about the merits of their economic systems, capitalism and communism. The film includes intriguing shots of daily life in 1950s Moscow, and Pennebaker said it is the first time it will be shown in Russia.
The festival is part of this year's celebration of 200 years of U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations, and is supported by the U.S. Embassy.
Film historian Kirill Razlogov, a longtime programmer at the Moscow International Film Festival, assembled the feature film program, while the documentary section was put together by U.S. filmmaker Robin Hessman, a graduate of Moscow's famous VGIK film school.
Razlogov's program is divided into themes, and all films being shown have at least a tenuous connection to Russia.
The IndiVisual section has provocative independent films such as Gus Van Sant's vaguely Dostoevskian "Paranoid Park," a youth drama filmed in Portland, Oregon. Russian Accents features a mini-retrospective of the work of emigre filmmaker Vyacheslav "Slava" Tsukerman, and the director will attend. The program includes his famous low-budget sci-fi film "Liquid Sky."
The Hollywood Classics section runs the gamut from the somewhat jokey choice of "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" to curios such as Orson Welles' "Mr. Arkadin," which exists in five different versions. The European version, known by the title "The Confidential Report," will be shown.
Ekran.doc, the documentary program, also has a varied choice but provides a platform for subjects mostly new to the Russian cinemagoers, such as Oliver Hodge's "Garbage Warrior," about an architect, Mike Reynolds, who makes sustainable housing out of beer cans.
The documentary section also features a retrospective of the work of Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Hegedus, now Pennebaker's wife, started working with Pennebaker as an editor in the late 1970s and eventually became an equal collaborator. Pennebaker's best-known film is "Don't Look Back," a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of Britain. Pennebaker and Hegedus will be in town to present their pictures, which include "Opening in Moscow."
On the phone from New York on Monday, Pennebaker recalled his 1959 trip to Moscow.
"I wasn't just interested in concentrating on the exhibition, but on seeing what Moscow was like," he said. "What was interesting was when I came back, almost nobody was interested in seeing the film. Nobody was interested in Russia, and I thought this was so curious. This film has hardly ever been seen in the U.S."
The American Film Festival runs from Sept. 18-23 at Formula Kino Yevropy, located at 2 Ploshchad Kievskogo Vokzala. Metro Kievskaya.
www.amfest.ru.
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