After months of delay and the threat of danger, the epic Holocaust film "Schindler’s List" is finally appearing on Russian movie screens.
The Oscar-winning film about a German Nazi industrialist who saved Jews during the Holocaust had originally been scheduled to open in June, but the premiere was postponed because producer-director Steven Spielberg was too busy to attend the event.
A month later, security forces arrested members of the Werewolf gang of Russian neo-Nazis, who had planned to burn down Moscow cinemas screening the film.
Nicolette Kirk, the film’s distributor in Russia for East-West Creative Associates, said she had recently made contact with the American and Israeli embassies as well as the Russian Interior Ministry, and "they had no information about attacks on cinemas."
The film opened Sept. 12 in Moscow with relatively little fanfare: Spielberg was not present, nor were any of the actors.
Yet public interest appears to be vast. The daily newspaper Izvestia recently published a favorable, full-page preview, and the film has attracted comment from such prominent Russians as economist Yegor Gaidar, who said, "The inoculation against fascism is only good for 50 years. I would like wholeheartedly to thank the artist for understanding this ahead of time."
After opening in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the film is scheduled to roll out to 20 Russian cities, including Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Samara and Murmansk.
Kirk said she expects the film to be greatly successful, despite the fact that many Russians have already seen it on pirated videocassettes.
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