MOSCOW (AP) 鈥 A Mexican film has won the top prize Friday at the Moscow International Film Festival, which took place as major Western studios boycott the Russian market and as Russia's war in Ukraine grinds into its third year.
鈥淪hame,鈥 a film by director Miguel Salgado and co-produced by Mexico and Qatar, was the most highly awarded film at the festival, which began in 1935 and which has been held annually since 1999. This year鈥檚 edition included more than 240 films from 56 countries.
In his victory speech, Salgado hailed the festival as one of the most important in the world, adding that he was pleased to see his film, a thriller, being shown so widely and that it was a 鈥済reat gift鈥 to see so many people moved by it.
Festival program director Ivan Kudryavtsev told state news agency ITAR-Tass that more than half the entries this year came from countries whose governments are considered unfriendly to Russia.
After Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, major studios in the United States and many European countries halted distribution of their films to Russia. The cutoff was a significant blow to Russian movie theaters. Before the conflict started, the country's cinemas received about 70% of their revenue from Hollywood films, according to news reports.
The festival program included several smaller films from the United States, including 鈥淗undreds of Beavers,鈥 billed as a supernatural tale of a 19th Century fur trapper鈥檚 battle with the animals, and 鈥淓nter the Clones of Bruce鈥 about the exploitation films that followed the death of .
Movies from other countries opposing the war in Ukraine include Romania, France, Italy and Germany.
The head of the jury for the festival鈥檚 main award, the Golden St. George, was Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, from NATO member Iceland, whose 鈥淐hildren of Nature鈥 is the only Icelandic film ever nominated for an Academy Award.
