On the first weekend of September a new film, Moscow, I Love You!, comes out. Its release is timed to coincide with the 862nd birthday of the Russian capital.

The film consists of 18 short films made by different Russian directors who tried to capture the Moscow of our days. In fact, the film is a Russian alternative to a popular French movie Paris, I love you and a similar film about New York, but according to the project's producer Yegor Konchalovsky this won't make it less interesting. Konchalovsky was offered to take part in the French project, and that inspired him to make an alternative project about Moscow.

"In Paris they invited me to participate in the French project, and later their producer even went to Moscow to discuss it with me. That gave me the idea – why not make a similar project about Moscow, our beautiful capital? The only disadvantage I saw is that Moscow was not such an influential city as Paris was for many great filmmakers," he said.

Well, it is likely that Polish filmmaker Kshishtof Zanussi, who declared his love to Moscow many times, would argue this statement, as would the French director Claude Lelouch. It was in Moscow that he realized that he wanted to be a film director.

Anyway, the new Russian film is worth seeing. It includes funny, romantic and touching stories with love, betrayal, gangsters, hopes and disappointments.

According to Yegor Konchalovsky, the most difficult thing was to select stories. "I thought my hair would turn grey on this project!", he says. "It was so difficult to unite such different stories made by different directors in one film."

One of the stories was filmed by Artyom Mikhalkov, the son of the world-famous Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov. His story ,called "Job", is about a Russian guy who is trying to get a job in a US company. We hear from Artyom Mikhalkov:

"The spirit of Moscow is in this story. Modern Moscow is a megacity with offices of many foreign companies which set their own rules and surround us with their brands."

Signs of the time – it cannot be denied. In 1963 Artyom's father Nikita Mikhalkov played his first role in the film I Walk Through Moscow. That film captured a different city – a little bit naïve and unpretentious, but more sincere and friendly. That film has become the classics of the Soviet cinema. Time will tell what fate of Moscow, I Love You! will be.