Silver Screenings

A new Anna Karenina adaptation will include Keira Knightley as Anna and Jude Law as her husband, the dour Alexei Karenin. Count Vronsky will be played by Aaron Johnson, formerly cast as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy. The star-studded casting was generally snubbed by Russian Tolstoy fans, who viewed Knightley as too cold and Law as too young. The production will concentrate on the love triangle and skim over other storylines, said Tom Stoppard, who wrote the screenplay for Joe Wright, though he promised Kitty and Levin would share some of the spotlight.

"We've seen all kinds of Anna Kareninas drift past on the screen, from the inimitable Greta Garbo to Tatyana Drubich (let's not think about her age).* But the miscasting of Keira Knightley in the role of wife, mother, and passionate lover – that makes one nervous far before the premiere," a blogger wrote on the Livejournal community Ru-Kino.

Alexander Sokurov, whose film Faust triumphed at the Cannes film festival this year, made a surprise revelation: the movie was made possible thanks to Vladimir Putin.