The 12th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 7 to 21 July 1981. The Golden Prizes were awarded to the Brazilian film O Homem que Virou Suco directed by João Batista de Andrade, the Vietnamese film The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone directed by Nguyen Hong Shen and the Soviet-French-Swiss film Teheran 43 directed by Aleksandr Alov and Vladimir Naumov.