Many U.S. Films Due in Moscow for 1st Time

MOSCOW — Ronald Reagan will appear in Moscow this week--in the old movie “King’s Row.”

The film will be shown as part of a pioneering American film festival that will allow Moscow audiences to see many Hollywood films for the first time.

The festival is part of the cultural exchange that grew out of President Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva in 1985.

Thirty American films will be shown in the course of the weeklong festival, including “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Killing Fields.”

Most of the films have never been seen in the Soviet Union, where relatively few foreign movies are shown, for ideological as well as economic reasons.

Under Soviet leader Gorbachev, the cinematographers’ union has chosen a new, more liberal leader, Elem Klimov, and more foreign films are scheduled for future showing.

Also included among the American films chosen for inclusion in the festival are “The Wizard of Oz” and “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Several star performers, including Richard Gere, Cicely Tyson, Matt Dillon and Carrie Fisher, are expected to attend the festival and discuss the films with Soviet audiences.

The festival is being sponsored by Film and Theater Diplomacy, a group based in San Francisco, with the cooperation of the Soviet State Film Board and the film makers’ union.

Carole Peyser, founder of the San Francisco group, said she chose the films to show Soviet audiences what Americans are really like and give a comprehensive view of life in the United States.