Woody Allen slammed for telelink to Moscow film festival

Ukraine has called Woody Allen’s involvement in the Moscow film festival a "disgrace," but the director defended his decision to speak at the event hosted by President Vladimir Putin’s ally.

The four-time Oscar winner joined Moscow International Film Week via a telelink for a discussion on a number of topics, including artificial intelligence (AI), which he said will never produce work at the level of authors like Tennessee Williams or Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Allen reminisced about his visit to the Soviet Union, which he described as a grim experience, but said that he “always enjoyed” Russian cinema, singling out Sergey Bondarchuk’s Soviet-era adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which won an Oscar for the best foreign language film in 1969.

The American filmmaker was interviewed by Bondarchuk’s son Fyodor, a close Putin ally and director of Russian films including Stalingrad and Attraction.

Allen suggested he would be open to make a film in Russia, but has not yet received any offers to do so, according to RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.

If he received such a proposal, he said he “would sit down and think about a script on how well you feel in Moscow and St. Petersburg.” Allen said he had “only good feelings” for these cities and wouldn’t mind returning for a visit.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned Allen’s participation in the event. “This is a disgrace and an insult to the memory of the Ukrainian actors and filmmakers who have been killed or injured by Russian war criminals during Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” it said in a statement on Facebook.

The ministry said that Allen was “deliberately turning a blind eye” to the Russian atrocities in Ukraine. “Culture should never be used to whitewash crimes or serve as a tool of propaganda,” it added.

Allen rebutted the condemnation, saying in a statement first shared with The Guardian: “When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, I believe strongly that Vladimir Putin is totally in the wrong. The war he has caused is appalling. But, whatever politicians have done, I don’t feel cutting off artistic conversations is ever a good way to help.”

The idea that culture and sports should be separated from politics is a common narrative pushed by Russian propaganda, and Moscow has been successfully using both as soft power tools to influence public opinions abroad for years.

Allen made his last two films, Rifkin’s Festival and Coup de Chance, with the European financial backing after his deal with Amazon fell through in 2019 following sexual abuse allegations from his stepdaughter, Dylan Farrow.

Farrow said in 2014 that Allen sexually abused her when she was seven. He denied the allegations, of which he was cleared after two investigations.