MOSCOW – A bronze bust of renowned Japanese film director Kaneto Shindo was set up in a park in Moscow on Saturday, with some 100 people, including actors and those in the film industry in Russia, attending the unveiling ceremony.
Russian sculptor and Shindo’s friend Grigori Potocki made the statue of the 99-year-old director, and a nonprofit organization led by the sculptor provided the funding.
Potocki called Shindo “a wonderful romantic” and “the first great foreign film director” introduced to Russia in the early 1960s, when the Soviet Union first opened itself to the world.
Shindo is the oldest active director in Japan and one of the most renowned Japanese directors in Russia. His films have won the Grand Prix at the Moscow international film festival three times, with “The Naked Island” (“Hadaka no Shima”) in 1961, “Live Today, Die Tomorrow” (“Hadaka no Jukyu-sai”) in 1971, and “Will to Live” (“Ikitai”) in 1999.
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