MOSCOW, May 20.We continue a series of materials about a unique collection of digitized photo images from the repository, which contains more than three million frames. The earliest date back to the middle of the 19th century. Employees of the Visual Projects Service are conducting scientific work to find reliable information about historical photographs of different years.
The archive contains rare photographs depicting visits to the Soviet Union by foreign stars. Their arrival was a real event. Popular theater and film actors could be seen at the events of the International Moscow Film Festival.
The first Soviet film festival in Moscow was held in 1935, in 1941 it stopped its work, and in 1959 it was resumed on the initiative of Ekaterina Furtseva under the name MIFF. Over the years, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Marais, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro and many other stars have become guests of the show.
On the first photo: IV Moscow International Film Festival. Italian actress Sophia Loren with her husband Carlo Ponti at the opening of Cinema Day at the Green Theater in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure. Photo by Boris Kaufman.
Sophia Loren first visited the USSR in 1965, when Vittorio de Sica's film «Italian Marriage» was presented at the MIFF. Then the jury of the review awarded her the prize for the best female role. The festival ended with an official closing at the Palace of Congresses and a solemn reception in the Georgievsky Hall of the Kremlin. According to eyewitnesses, Lauren freely walked around the center of Moscow and did not refuse those who wanted to take a photo with her as a keepsake.
Soviet film actress Tamara Makarova and German theater and film actor Erwin Geschonnek during a boat trip along the Klyazma reservoir during the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. Photo by Boris Kaufman.
The guest of the IV Moscow International Film Festival, held in July 1965, was the German actor Erwin Geschonnek. The artist has an amazing biography: in 1933 he emigrated to the Soviet Union, was expelled from there in 1938, spent six years in German concentration camps and became one of the few survivors of the British Royal Air Force attack on the Cap Arcona ship, which the Nazis used as a floating prison. Then Geschonnek successfully worked in theater and cinema in East Germany.
He was a member of the jury of the Moscow International Film Festival several times and came to the USSR. 
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin during a meeting with participants of the II Moscow International Film Festival at the USSR Ministry of Culture. In the front row, Italian actresses Gina Lollobrigida (left) and Marisa Merlini (right). Photo by Boris Kaufman.
In 1961 the MIFF was visited by the actress Gina Lollobrigida, who wished to meet the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who had recently made his first space flight. The Italian asked the Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva about this. Gagarin became a special guest of the film festival and welcomed the invited stars. Boris Kaufman's camera captured the genuine admiration with which Lollobrigida looked at Yuri Alekseevich.