Moscow film festival opens with praise of soldiers in Donbas

Russian actress Kotova-Deryabina during the opening ceremony (AP)

The 44th Moscow International Film Festival opened on Friday with reduced foreign representation amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Festival head Nikita Mikhalkov, the Academy Award-winning director of Burnt By The Sun, brushed that off, saying: “It makes no difference how big are the stars that come.