THE Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) is one of the oldest in the world. It was founded in 1935 but became a regular event in the 1960s.
Through MIFF, one could meet foreign filmmakers whose works rethought the very concept of cinema. Some innovators of cinema, whose works shook Cannes and Venice in the 1960s, found their place in MIFF.
In its programmes in the early 1960s, we find the names of Federico Fellini, Valerio Zurlini and Kaneto Sindo.
MIFF was attended by the biggest movie stars of the time, including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Finch, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Burton, Anna Karina, Simone Signoret, Jean Marais and Yves Montand.
Other guests included Anna Magnani, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pietro Germi, Lilian Gish, Fred Zinnemann, Michel Simon, Dino Risi, Carol Reid, Jacque Tati and Pierre Etex.
In the late 1980s, the idea of the destruction of "walls" between the West and the socialist camp became very attractive to foreign filmmakers. They're eager to see a new Russia, striving to throw off the shackles of the former system — socialism — during the Soviet era.
Fast forward to the year 2000, a Russian director, Nikita Mikhalkov, became the president of the festival and founded a well-coordinated team which decided to emphasise greater accuracy in programming and viewership.
MIFF has become a very solid cultural and social event. Recent guests included megastar actors and directors like Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, John Malkovich, Shia La Boeuf, Sean Penn and Tim Burton.
The festival's top prize is the statue of Saint George slaying a dragon, as depicted on the Coat of Arms of Moscow.
Over the years, the Stanislavsky Award for acting achievements was given to popular actors and actresses like Jack Nicholson, Jeanne Moreau, Meryl Streep, Harvey Keitel, Gérard Depardieu, Isabelle Huppert, Helen Mirren and Catherine Deneuve.
Here is good news for Malaysians! For the first time, my close friend, U-Wei Hj Saari, has been invited to chair the jury for the festival that just opened on Friday.
U-Wei is an outstanding Malaysian director, screenwriter and producer. His first self-produced film, Perempuan, Isteri dan... (1993), put him at the forefront of the "new wave" of directors of alternative cinema in the 1990s.
The film was a box-office success (RM1.3 million) and brought fame to the director.
The turning point in his career came in 1995 when his film, Kaki Bakar, became the first Malaysian film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival and received a "Grand Prix" as the best foreign film at the Brussels Film Festival. In 2004, it was also nominated for film festivals in Venice and Los Angeles.
Subsequently, the films Jogho (1997), based on the story by Osman Kelantan, Menunggu Pelangi (2001), Buai Laju-Laju (2004), based on the story by James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Hanyut (2012), based on Joseph Conrad's novel, The Caprice of Ohlmeyer, confirmed his talent.
American scholar Gordon Gray used to say: "While directors Aziz M. Osman and Yusof Haslam continue to create commercially oriented films, directors U-Wei and Shuhaimi Baba are challenging the status quo in cinema and producing films that are distinguished by the novelty of language, achieving international recognition outside of Asia."
Let us wish U-Wei success. Let him judge fairly and appreciate the films of his colleagues on merit. His appointment as chairman of the jury testifies also to the high international assessment of Malaysian cinema.
The writer, writing from Russia, is a former lecturer of Universiti Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times