It's the elephant in the room: did Vladivostok's 11th Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries suffer a backlash from Moscow's sweeping and offensive anti-gay "propaganda" law? After all, St Petersburg's festival lost Hollywood actor-writer Wentworth Miller just a few weeks before Pacific Meridian - which took place recently - for that reason.
"Are you kidding, that's half the reason I said yes," says Chilean director Mauricio López Fernández, whose short film The Blessed hinges on an intersex girl playing the Virgin Mary in a village rite. "If you can't take the film to difficult places and talk about it, then what's the point of making it?"
Pacific Meridian programmer and curator Andrey Vasilenko agrees. "Sure, we were a little nervous about what the reaction would be," he says about the festival's decision to also screen Alain Guiraudie's explicit gay thriller Stranger by the Lake.
"We can't worry about that stuff … it's absolutely terrible, a stupid law," he says. "This is a space for directors, producers, everyone to engage in conversation and hopefully change opinion. This is a place of freedom."
Vladivostok is a long way from Moscow - physically (more than 9,000 kilometres) and spiritually. "We're quite distinct from the central part of Russia," Vasilenko says.
There is a relaxed coastal town vibe, despite the presence of the Pacific Fleet; it is more Asian (less than 1,000 kilometres to Osaka) than European, as evidenced by Putonghua and Korean peppering conversations more than English and Italian.
Pacific Meridian's organisers made good use of the city's warm days and cool nights: taking a page from Busan's playbook, they launched a festival village on the waterfront, the aim being to cultivate more local interaction. Its 140-odd films are a manageable number for attendees, too.