MOVIES - June 26, 1991

Boycott Is Firm: The U.S. film producers’ boycott of next month’s Moscow Film Festival is firm, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said Tuesday. “We won’t send our pictures to any country where thieves are in control of the marketplace,” Valenti replied in response to an appeal by the Soviet Foreign Ministry urging the American film companies to send films to the festival. In a letter to Valenti last week, the Soviets acknowledged the rampant film and video piracy problem, but said that a boycott would only hurt cinema lovers. “I’m not trying to punish anybody,” Valenti said. “The boycott is still on because we have finally said, enough .”