Woody Allen offers to shoot a film in Russia during the invasion of Ukraine.

Film director Woody Allen (New York, 89) was the star of Moscow International Film Week this Sunday, where he declared via videoconference his love for Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk 's film "War and Peace ." The film addresses the disasters of war, but the American filmmaker ignored this theme despite the fact that the host country of the event has been invading Ukraine for three and a half years. On the contrary, he expressed his willingness to film in Russia. "If there were offers, I would sit down and think of a script that reflected how good one feels in Moscow and St. Petersburg," Allen said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died over the years, including artists. “This is a disgrace and an insult to the sacrifice of Ukrainian actors and filmmakers who have been killed or injured by Russian war criminals,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denounced on the social network X on Monday.

kyiv's condemnation was accompanied by an image of a ruined Ukrainian city with Woody Allen's signature glasses printed in the foreground. "Culture should never be used to cover up crimes or as a propaganda tool," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry added.

Allen was invited to the event by the son of the director of War and Peace , filmmaker Fyodor Bondarchuk. The artist is a member of the Supreme Council of Putin's party, United Russia, and has participated in the election campaigns of the Russian president and the current mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin.

“I've always loved Russian cinema. I had the pleasure of meeting Sergei Bondarchuk several years ago in New York. I saw the Russian film War and Peace, which is almost seven hours long, in a single day,” Woody Allen said during his appearance via webcam.

Woody Allen's participation in the event was a propaganda coup for the Kremlin just a week after achieving an even more significant milestone with the meeting between Putin and Donald Trump at the US base in Anchorage, Alaska. Moscow is trying to show that international isolation and sanctions over the war in Ukraine have failed, and attracting artists like Allen is key to Russian soft power. Although they are very few in number, Moscow also has another important appearance in September: a concert by singer Jason Derulo at the 2018 World Cup final stadium.

Allen has offered his collaboration to the Russian film industry, completely controlled and censored by the Kremlin, at a time when he is facing the most difficult time in his filmmaking career. The filmmaker was ostracized by the American film industry after his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow again accused him of sexual abuse at the end of the last decade. Dylan, now 40, first told these stories to her adoptive mother, Mia Farrow, at the age of seven. The director responded years later that these accusations were "full of falsehoods ."

The fiery filmmaker took advantage of his speech to criticize the use of artificial intelligence in culture. "I don't think [AI] could ever write anything like Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, or Fyodor Dostoevsky because they also include their weaknesses and mistakes, and I don't think a machine makes mistakes," the New York artist reflected.

Woody Allen participated in the Legends of World Cinema session. Other illustrious guests at the Russian festival included American actor and martial arts expert Mark Dacascos and Serbian director Emir Kusturica , a regular at cultural and political events in Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine, another Slavic country. Kusturica was appointed director of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army on February 21, 2022, just three days before the Kremlin launched its all-out offensive against Kyiv.