Woody Allen meters condemnation of Ukraine to speak at the Russian Film Festival

On Monday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Woody Allen for actually speaking at a Russian film festival during the weekend, describing his participation in the event, “Shame and Insult” to the victims of the victims Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine.

According to the Russian media, Allen spoke on Sunday in the week of Moscow International at the video conference. The appearance was unlikely with the Hollywood Foundation, which embraced the Ukraine issue during the Russia’s war for 3 years for two years, as prominent representatives of the UNITED24 collective financing initiative and the President of Ukrainyr Zelenskyy are virtual aspects of Gullob Globe and Grammys.

Footage broadcast on Russian State TV showed that the director addresses a tightly crowded cinematic theater from a huge screen, with the director of the Pro-Kremlin Fyodor Bondarchuk. The Russian media stories reported to Eline as saying that he always loves him from Russian cinema, and his previous trips to Russia and the Soviet Union, and talks about what he would do if he would receive a proposal to direct a movie in the country.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in an online statement on Monday that it “strongly condemns” Allen’s participation in the festival, which “brings together supporters and lines (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.

The ministry described it as “a stigma and an insult to the victims between the Ukrainian actors and the directors who were killed or wounded by Russian war criminals,” adding that Allen “deliberately turned away from the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine.”

In a statement to Associated Press on Monday, Allen criticized Putin and denounced the invasion but called for continued cultural exchanges.

“When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, I strongly think that Vladimir Putin is completely wrong. The war that causes it is horrific,” Allen said. “However, whatever politicians do, I do not feel that cutting technical conversations is a good way to help.”

The festival site, which continues until Wednesday, described Allen as one of his main titles, alongside Serbian movie director Emir Costatura and American actor Mark Dakkos.

Moscow International Film Week is a relatively new festival, which was held for the first time in the Russian capital in August 2024. It is separate from the decades -continuing Moscow International Film Festival, which was stripped in 2022 from the adoption of the Film Producers Union in the wake of the conquest of Ukraine.

Kusturica was open about his support for Putin, including after the invasion. He received an award from Putin and attended a military parade in Moscow earlier this year.

Allen had long had a convergence of Russian literature and history. His comedy in 1975 “Love and Death” warns of Tolstoy’s imagination and other Russian novelists in the nineteenth century. The title of its issuance for the year 1989 “crimes and misdemeanors” repeats “a crime and punishment”, “Dostoyevsky”, as well as embrace on the topics of error, justice and guilt.

In an article in 1972, “brief evidence of civil disobedience”, Allen joked about the Russian revolution, where he wrote that the two consequences rebelled when they finally realized that the Caesar and the stove were the same person. “