Mosfilm Director Karen Shakhnazarov announced at a preview press conference Monday that the V-E retrospective screenings would run in parallel in five cities across Russia, including Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Vladikavkaz, and Samara. They will feature twenty motion pictures about WWII that have been produced at Mosfilm at various points in time, including the Soviet-era classics "Ballad of a Soldier," "The Cranes Are Flying," and "The Living and the Dead." The films will be presented by famous Russian actors Mikhail Ulyanov, Tatiana Samoilova, Irina Skobtseva and Zhanna Prokhorenko.
Mosfilm will also try to arrange for television reruns of as many WWII films as possible during this year's V-E anniversary festivities, Shakhnazarov said. It has thirty-three features on offer, including five parts of the war epic "Osvobozhdenie" ("Liberation").
Also, Mosfilm will be most willing to provide, free of charge, copies of its WWII pictures for any movie theater interested in screening them, the studio's director said.