Ukraine condemns actor and filmmaker Woody Allen for speaking at a Russian film festival

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned Woody Allen for speaking virtually at a Russian film festival over the weekend, calling his participation in the event “a disgrace and an insult” to the victims of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to Russian media, Allen spoke Sunday at the Moscow International Film Week via video conference. The appearance put him at odds with the Hollywood establishment, which has embraced the Ukraine cause during Russia’s 3 1/2-year war, with prominent actors signing on to the United24 crowdfunding initiative and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy making virtual appearances at past Golden Globes and Grammys ceremonies.

Footage aired by Russian state TV showed the filmmaker addressing a tightly packed movie theater from a massive screen, with pro-Kremlin film director Fyodor Bondarchuk moderating the session. Russian media reports quoted Allen as saying that he has always liked Russian cinema, recounting his past trips to Russia and the Soviet Union, and talking about what he would do if he were to receive a proposal to direct a movie in the country.

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Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry in an online statement on Monday said that it “strongly condemns” Allen’s participation in the festival, which “brings together supporters and mouthpieces of Putin.” The ministry called it “a disgrace and an insult to the victims among Ukrainian actors and filmmakers who have been killed or wounded by Russian war criminals,” adding that Allen “is deliberately turning a blind eye to the atrocities that Russia has been committing in Ukraine.”

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

“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,” Allen said. “But, whatever politicians have done, I don’t feel cutting off artistic conversations is ever a good way to help.”

The website of the festival, which runs through Wednesday, billed Allen as one of its headliners, along with Serbian film director Emir Kusturica and American actor Mark Dacascos. Moscow International Film Week is a relatively new festival, first held in the Russian capital in August 2024. It is separate from the decades-old Moscow International Film Festival, which in 2022 was stripped of its International Federation of Film Producers Associations accreditation following the invasion of Ukraine.

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

Allen has long had an affinity for Russian literature and history. His 1975 comedy “Love and Death” spoofs the fiction of Tolstoy and other 19th century Russian novelists. The title of his 1989 release, “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” echoes Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and also broods over the themes of wrongdoing, justice and guilt.

In the 1972 essay, “A Brief Guide to Civil Disobedience,” Allen jokes about the Russian Revolution, writing that the serfs rebelled when they “finally realized that the Czar and the Tsar were the same person.”