Moscow OKs Theaters for Jewish Film Festival

City officials today agreed to provide theater space in downtown Moscow for a Jewish film festival after U.S. diplomats demanded that the show be allowed to go ahead as planned, a festival organizer said.

The weeklong festival of 30 films will open on schedule Saturday night, using two of the three large theaters officials had promised, said Janice Plotkin, co-director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Film Festival organization.

“They took away one theater, but we’re very pleased with the results,” she said, adding that a smaller theater is to be provided instead. “It’s been a hair-raising experience.”

Moscow officials had said they could not provide space in large theaters in the center of the Soviet capital, and organizers had been faced with the prospect of moving the festival to small theaters on the outskirts of the city, Plotkin said.

City officials did not explain why they could not provide the larger theaters, but the festival never was in danger of cancellation, she said.

Well-known national legislators, the U.S. Embassy, and Soviet filmmakers intervened in the dispute over theater space, and the organizers were notified by city officials today that the festival could go ahead, she said.