Amidst chaos and confusion

The 10-member jury awarded the festival’s Golden St George prize for best movie to US director Scott Mcpherson’s Marvin’s Room, starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Silver St George prize went to best actor Til Schweiger for his role as Rudi, the boy who never saw the sea, in the German film Knocking on Heaven’s Door, and the best actress prize went to Isabel Ordaz, who plays a romantic gambler in Spanish director Javier Maqua’s Chevrolet.

The prize for best director was awarded to Hungarian Janos Szasz for his film The Witman Boys, which also grabbed an International Federation of Film Press jury prize.

Famous Italian actress Sophia Loren received the St George’s Prize for the greatest contribution to the development of cinema and for being a friend to cinematographers the world over.

Russian Alexander Sakurov’s film Mother and Son was awarded a special jury prize for “efforts to expand the bounds of cinema” as well as the Tarkovsky Fund award for excellence in direction, the Russian Film Critic’s Guild for Best Film.

Even before the jury formally announced the prize for best movie to Marvin’s Room, rumours were doing rounds in the Rossiya cinema that festival organisers would give the film the award as a `token of gratitude’ to De Niro for personally coming to Moscow.

This was denied by Indian film director Mrinal Sen who was on the jury. “The film was judged solely on its merits,” he said. “But I will say that the festival needed to choose its films better,” Sen added. “The quality of the competition films as a whole was not high. It’s a world phenomenon. There are simply too many festivals and not enough good films.”

This was Sen’s first visit to Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Asked to tell his experience in the new situation, he said: “One difference I have noticed. Earlier, they used to invite you to come here with your spouse. But this time, they invited me to come with my companion.”

“In other words, if you are gay, you could bring your gay partner, if you are lesbian, you could bring your lesbian partner,” Sen commented.An Indian entry in the competition, Shyam Benegal’s Sardari Begum, could not get even a consolation prize, which was gallantly given to Indian films in Soviet times, in the name of `Indo-Soviet friendship’.