The Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), which was to take place in April 2022, will be held in late summer, the festival directorate said on Monday.
"New dates of the 44th Moscow International Film Festival have been announced - it will be held from August 26 to September 2, 2022," the directorate said in a statement.
The festival program is being put together. Over 200 applications have already been submitted for the main event alone. Filmmakers from Argentina, Brazil, Peru, the US, the UK, Serbia, Italy, France, India, Iran, China, countries of the Middle East and other regions want their films to premiere at the Moscow festival, the statement said.
According to Ivan Kudryavtsev, a journalist and producer, who has been named Selection Committee chairman, filmmakers from more than 60 countries have already submitted applications, and the geography of the festival will continue to expand.
"Nigeria, whose population has surpassed 200 million people," has become a bustling picture production center, with the box office hitting $1 billion for less than a year, he said. "And there are a lot of other examples of emerging" film production centers.
The Moscow International Film Festival dates back to 1935, but it became regular since 1959. Famed film producer Nikita Mikhalkov is the festival’s president.