Editor

Moscow festival jury members:

MAIN COMPETITION

Alan PARKER — Chairman, director (United Kingdom)
Jerzy STUHR — actor, director (Poland)
Boris AKUNIN — author (Russia)
Armen MEDVEDEV — film critic, film producer (Russia)
Barbara SUKOWA — actress (Germany)
Humbert BALSAN — film producer (France)

COMPETITION PERSPECTIVES

Alexei UCHITEL — Chairman, director, producer (Russia)
Diana DUMBRAVA — actress (Romania)
Stefan LAUDYN — festival director (Poland)

Alan PARKER, director
Born in London, 1944. He started by making commercials, then made a few shorts. His "The Evacuees", made for television in 1975, won Parker his first BAFTA Best Director. A year later appeared "Bugsy Malone", a musical film after Alan Parker's own script. It won many national awards, but the film that brought Parker universal fame was "Midnight Express" (1978). Its success enabled Alan Parker to move to Hollywood. There the director tried to win the hearts of the audience working in box-office genres of musicals, detectives and thrillers, making films in the exquisite, truly British manner. His most memorable films are "Pink Floyd - the Wall" (1982), "Angel Heart" (1987), "Mississippi Burning" (1988), "Evita" (1996), "The Life of David Gale" (2003).
Jerzy STUHR, actor, director
Born in Krakow, 1947. Having been trained at Jagiellonski University and Krakow School of Drama, he became one of the leading actors of Polish film. On stage, he appeared in the major roles in "Hamlet", "Crime and Punishment", "The Contrabass" (after Patrick Suskind). Jerzy Stuhr is also known as a stage director. In film, he featured the major parts in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Camera Buff" (1979), "Blind Chance" (1987), "Decalogue Ten" (1989), "Three Colours: White" (1994), as well as in Juliusz Machulski's "Sexmission" (1984) and "Deja vu" (1988). His directorial debut was "List of Lovers" (1995), followed by "Love Stories" (1997), "A Week in the Life of a Man" (1999), "Big Animal" (2000) and "Tomorrow's Weather" (2003). Jerzy Stuhr has been awarded as both an actor and a film director at many national and world film festivals. He also has students at drama schools at home and abroad. He is Fellow of European Film Academy and the author of his autobiographical book "Sercowa Choroba Czyli Moje Zycie W Sztuce" (1992) and "Big Animal" and "Udawac Naprawde" (2000). He is married with two children, a son and a daughter.
Boris AKUNIN, author
aka Grigory Chkhartishvili, born in 1956. Akunin lives and works in Moscow. He is the author of some twenty books, mostly adventure novels, three of which have been made into films. Akunin's work has been marked with several awards. Thus, he has been awarded the Russian TV Academy Award (TEFI) for the Best Movie Script. For the past five years, there have been sold more than 10,000,000 copies of his books in Russia. Akunin's novels have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Armen MEDVEDEV, film critic, producer
Born in Moscow, 1938. Medvedev graduated from the history of film department of the State Institute of Cinema (VGIK) in 1960 and received Master degree in 1982. Medvedev has had an impressive career of a high-ranking executive: he has been Chief Executive of the Soviet Film Propaganda Agency and Chief Editor of the Soviet Film Magazine and The Art of Cinema Journal. Medvedev is Professor at VGIK. In 1987 - 1989, back in the former USSR, he occupied the post of Chief Deputy Chairman of GOSKINO. In 1989 - 1991 Medvedev headed the Culture and Education Agency of the Soviet of Ministers of the USSR. In 1992 - 1999 he was Chairman of GOSKINO again, this time the Russian one. Since 1999 Medvedev has been President of the International Fund for Development of Film and TV Film for Children and Teenagers better known as the Rolan Bykov Foundation. Medvedev is the author of a number of books on cinema, articles and essays published both at home and abroad. He is Honorary Worker of Arts, ¦рёыєцхээvщ фх Єхы№ шёъєёёЄт ¦юёёшш. He has also had many official orders and awards.
Barbara SUKOWA, actress
Born in 1950. The actress trained at the drama school of Max Reinhard in Berlin. She appeared in her first stage production in 1971. Since then Barbara Sukowa has worked with the theatre companies of Darmschtadt, Bremen, Frankfurt and Hamburg. The critics especially praised her performance of the parts in classical repertoire. In the late 1970s Barbara Sukowa became one of the leading German film actresses. Particularly successful has been her performance in the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's ("Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980) and "Lola" (1981) as well as in Margarethe von Trotta's "The German Sisters" (1981) and "Rosa Luxemburg" (1986). Barbara Sukowa has also been filmed outside Germany: "The Sicilian" (1987), a film by Michael Cimino; "Europa" (1991) by Lars von Trier; Volker Schlondorff's "The Voyager" (1991) and "M. Butterfly" (1993) by David Cronenberg. Her characters are usually strong-willed, self-confident and purposeful women.
Humbert BALSAN, producer
Born in 1954. Humbert Balsan started his career in film as an actor. His debut role was the 1973 performance of Sir Gauvain in "Lancelot of the Lake" by Robert Bresson. He has also appeared in the films by Jacques Rivette, Maurice Pialat, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Nicole Garcia. Humbert Balsan has had experience as Second Unit Director on Robert Bresson's film "The Devil Probably" (1977). Since 1978 has been producing films working with major film directors in all parts of the world: with James Ivory and Jean-Louis Trintignant, with Youssef Chahine and Alexander Rogozhkin, with Elia Suleiman, Claire Denis, Lars von Trier and others. Nowadays, Humbert Balsan is incumbent Vice-President of the French Cinemateque as well as President of the European Film Academy.
Alexei UCHITEL
Director, producer
Born in Leningrad, 1951. He is the son of Yefim Uchitel, the well-known Soviet-time maker of documentary films. Following in his father's steps, Alexei Uchitel graduated from the All-Russia State Institute of Cinema in 1975 and worked as a cinematographer and director of documentaries for Leningrad Documentary Film Studios. At the time and later, he became participant and prize-winner of numerous international film festivals as managing director of the ROCK Film Studio, which Alexei Uchitel set up in 1990. His first feature was "Giselle's Mania" (1995). His other film, "His Wife's Diary" (2000), was officially selected by Russia for 2000 Best Foreign Film Oscars nomination, was nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Golden Satellite Association of Cinema Press, USA and won the Best Feature Film Nika Award of the Russian Film Academy. His "The Stroll" (2003) opened the 25th Moscow International Film Festival.
Diana DUMBRAVA
Actress
Born in 1967 in Bacau, Romania. Diana Dumbrava graduated from the University of Drama and Cinematography in Bucharest in 1994. Since 1995 she has been the leading actress for the Bulandra Theatre where her most important roles include Maria Josepha in Federico Garcia Lorca's "The House of Bernarda Alba", the stepdaughter in Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author", Regan in Shakespeare's "King Lear" as well as Athena and Mnemosyne in the Stage adaptation of Homer's "Odyssey". Also, Diana Dumbrava appeared in more than ten feature films and five shorts: "Asphalt Tango" by Nae Caranfil, "Beowulf" by Graham Bake. For the title role in Calin Peter Netzer's film "Maria" (2003) she was nominated Best Actress by the European Film Academy and has received several international awards, among them a Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.
Stefan LAUDYN
Film festival director
Born in Warsaw, 1959. Stefan Laudyn is a graduate of Warsaw Polytechnics where he trained in hydro engineering. In the 1980s he is known to have been involved in Warsaw rock and alternative music movement as manager and event organizer. In mid-80s Stefan Laudyn joined the team of film festival movement and in 1991 he became director of the Warsaw International Film Festival, the post Stefan Laudyn has occupied ever since. In 1995 he founded and since then he has been General Manager the Warsaw Film Foundation. In 2001 Stefan Laudyn initiated and became one of the coordinators of the Alliance of Central and Eastern European Film Festivals (CentEast). In 2003 he joined forces with producer Piotr Dzieciol of the Opus Film Company to produce feature films by young filmmakers. Being adviser to numerous film directors, producers and festival organizers, Stefan Laudyn, a Fellow of the European Film Academy, continues playing the guitar and writing essays on film for Polish and foreign magazines.