Money for the studio

The state begins an operation to save Russian cinema. To give the last fight to Hollywood, movie money will be divided among the big players

Last week, the film "Kandahar" was released - a large-scale film about Russian pilots who were captured by Afghan. Another Russian blockbuster was edited by Oscar winner American Gabriela Cristiani. She worked on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and Last Tango in Paris. Here it is, the future of our cinema, says Rafael Akopov, president of the ProfMedia company, which owns the Central Partnership film company: the big-budget patriotic sagas filmed by specialists from abroad will appear on the screen.

On Friday, the revolution in Russian cinematography ended, which was followed with tension last year by everyone who is somehow connected with the cinema: the first meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Fund for Support of Domestic Cinematography under the government took place. The whole principle of financing Russian cinema is changing.

Previously, the Ministry of Culture gave money for cinema. Now it is out of work, and the fund itself will distribute state support among large studios - "market leaders", as they were called. At the same time, the volume of support almost doubled compared to last year. All these decisions were endorsed personally by Vladimir Putin. The formation of the Russian film industry is recognized as a strategic state task. “This is about national security,” explains a source familiar with the essence and details of the reform.

THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THE ARTS

From the outside, it seems that Russian cinema is flourishing: there are more and more films, fees are growing. But in fact, Russian cinema is in crisis. Over the past ten years, it has not become an industry that can make money.

Last year, only seven films paid for themselves at the box office. And it's mostly low-key sitcoms, not patriotic blockbusters, simply because they're cheaper. The Ministry of Culture cites figures. The total production budget of Russian cinema last year was 10 billion rubles. Total fees - 4.5 billion. If you subtract the revenue of cinemas and other small things, the total loss of production companies will be 8 billion rubles.

The fees themselves are growing, but this does not make it any easier for officials concerned about the position of Russian cinema. Because the share of Russian cinema in the total turnover of film distribution in Russia is steadily falling - from 30% in 2004 to 16% in 2008. Hollywood is slowly but surely replacing the national cinema. The audience that goes to the cinema - and this is mostly young people, only 7-8 million people across the country - increasingly prefers America. Filmmakers explain: the audience was overfed with false advertising. They are already accustomed to thinking that Russian cinema is not of very high quality, and, other things being equal, they go to see a Hollywood action movie. Rare prizes for auteur cinema at European festivals could not change this picture.

Vladimir Putin believes that cinema is an important propaganda resource and one should not lose in this field. While the reform was being prepared, he increasingly learned that public funds were being used to support paintings that had nothing to do with patriotism. Officials give examples: "Zhmurki", a gangster comedy by Alexei Balabanov, "Gruz-200" by the same Balabanov, "Bastards", a blockbuster by Alexander Atanesyan about the inhuman use of children during the Great Patriotic War.

Putin was unhappy that money was being wasted. “The state bears the costs, but there is no political output,” a well-known film producer retells his logic, “but we need to shape reality, give money to those who make a good quality project in line with the general line of the party.”

On October 7, 2008, a meeting on the development of cinematography was held at the RWS studio in St. Petersburg, which is part of the AFK Sistema empire, chaired by Prime Minister Putin. There he said: from now on, the state will support films that correspond to its strategic interests. It was not about naked patriotism, a source involved in the process defends this approach. Putin instructed the Ministry of Culture to develop a new procedure for financing cinema.

OPERATION MINIKULT

By this time, the Ministry of Culture had been headed by the former ambassador to France, Alexander Avdeev, for six months. The Cinematography Agency was abolished back in May 2008, and its head Mikhail Shvydkoy left the Ministry of Culture. Several industry sources told Newsweek that Nikita Mikhalkov sought his resignation. And in the spring of last year, he won the fight for the leadership of the Union of Cinematographers and became even more active in defending his model for the development of cinema in Russia.

Last May, during the Golden Knight film festival in Lipetsk, filmmakers issued a manifesto calling for the creation of another source of funding for film projects, in addition to the Ministry of Culture. The letter spoke of the need to introduce a state order with 100% budget financing for the production of films that contribute to "spiritual revival and development of historical memory, strengthening the creative spirit, nurturing the will to live and create in their homeland."

In October 2009, a meeting was held in the Kremlin, to which representatives of the Ministry of Culture were also invited. It appears to have been the turning point. The main question for the ministry was how it carried out Putin's order. The answer was found unsatisfactory, says a source familiar with the course of the case: the Ministry of Culture said that it would develop a procedure, asked to add ten staff positions to the cinematography department and offered to recreate Goskino. “A year has passed and nothing has been done. No one spoke to them anymore,” the source says, “they were cut off.”

Sergei Zernov, director of the Department of Cinematography of the Ministry of Culture, objects: draft departmental orders regulating the procedure and conditions for granting subsidies to support cinema were sent to the government apparatus and the Ministry of Finance last spring. It was necessary to increase the number of staff "because of the huge amount of work to be done", and "no one proposed to recreate Goskino".

In fact, says one of the producers, the decision to take away money for cinema from the Ministry of Culture had already been made by that time. He believes that the scandal around the film "Russia 88" about skinheads, which also received state support, was the last straw. The first deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, according to various sources, was very dissatisfied with the film itself and with the fact that Deputy Minister of Culture Alexander Golutva, who was in charge of state support for cinema, allocated budget funding to it. “But since open censorship cannot be introduced, we decided to act through money,” one of the market participants reflects.

Newsweek sources claim that Surkov was the initiator of the film reform and the author of its main idea - to take money from the Ministry of Culture and distribute it among the studios. It was announced on November 3 at the first meeting of the Government Council for the Development of National Cinematography, timed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of VGIK. Vladimir Putin personally headed the council.

The entire meeting was built on the deadly criticism of the employees of the Ministry of Culture, for which, according to sources in the ministry, they were completely unprepared. The general director of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst, said that out of 101 films that received money from the budget in 2008, only 30 were released. This means that the money was wasted. Minister Alexander Avdeev and his deputy Alexander Golutva did not know what to say. Golutva denied these figures at a meeting of the Producers Guild only a week later. But it was already too late. The official figures of the Ministry of Culture are as follows: approximately 75 films received state support in 2007 and 2008, and approximately 50 of them were released annually.

MARKET LEADERS

Selecting sources of funding from the Ministry of Culture and its film department, offhand officials explained this by the fact that Golutva's department was mired in corruption. “We, filmmakers, ourselves went to the government all the time, chatting there that the Ministry of Culture was taking money, and they were so tired of it that they said: okay, we will remove corruption,” recalls Alexander Atanesyan, vice president of the Producers Guild.

True, many producers believe that the rumors about corruption in the Ministry of Culture are an exaggeration, invented on purpose in order to take away money from Golutva. “I cannot confirm the accusations of corruption in the previous system, corruption in our country, of course, is flourishing, but I myself did not hold a candle,” says producer Igor Tolstunov. “I can only say one thing about kickbacks: I didn’t give them. Zero percent,” says another film producer to whom the Ministry of Culture allocated money, “and I know others who didn’t.”

Now Golutva and the Ministry of Culture have nothing to do with it. The distribution of the lion's share of state funds to support cinema will be handled by a specially created Cinematography Support Fund. Sergey Tolstikov, adviser to the chairman of the board of directors of CJSC Transmashholding, was elected its chairman last Friday. They say that they were specifically looking for a person who was as far from the cinema as possible. In general, money for cinema will be allocated almost twice as much as last year - up to 4.9 billion rubles. Of these, the Ministry of Culture - for the development of documentary, children's and author's cinema - will receive less than 850 million rubles.

The heavy production business, largely associated with the attraction of credit resources, could not help but suffer from the crisis. Debts on non-performing loans amount to about $50 million, says Oleg Ivanov, CEO of Movie Research. Now the Fund will distribute the main amount of support among those who are called "market leaders". As in other sectors of the economy, the state is closing the debt hole of the affected players and hopes to push them to development.

The rules for providing subsidies to support cinema state that the fund will finance the production of national films that meet the goals of the state. The money will receive, according to various estimates, from five to ten companies. The head of one of the large companies says that there was an understanding of who would be recognized as the leader from the very beginning. On Friday, at a meeting of the council, a preliminary version of the list was discussed. There are only four companies in it so far: Directorate of Cinema (Channel One), Trite by Nikita Mikhalkov, Art Pictures by Fyodor Bondarchuk and RWS. The rest will probably come later. It was expected that they could be Central Partnership, Red Arrow by Valery Todorovsky, Profit by Igor Tolstunov and STV by Sergei Selyanov.

THE BEST OF THE WORST

What is a production leader? Who made the most films? Most collected at the box office? Have you collected the most awards at festivals? - asks Alexander Atanesyan. "Leaders in box office is an unidentified term that creates room for abuse." “They can’t say directly: we give only large ones. It's illegal," says another film manager. A source inside the case says that there are no criteria, the leaders were simply appointed by the political will, and this is normal. Other producers are perplexed: what are the market leaders in a declining, almost non-existent market?

The fund makes no secret of the fact that when choosing “leaders”, they were guided not so much by companies as by the personalities of individual producers. “Everyone understands that, of course, these companies are not leaders as such. The principle of choosing the best of the worst applies. These producers are at least visible and familiar to the administration,” says a source close to the fund. “The ministry gave money to just about anybody. And now they will choose only the right guys who will shoot large-scale sagas like “Kandahar” or “Taras Bulba”,” explains the head of one of the film companies.

True, such logic runs counter to the officially announced idea of ​​reforming the film industry. The legal form of the fund was needed so that it could earn money, explains a source familiar with the process. Companies will take the money and then have to pay it back. This money will again be invested in cinema - and thus the industry will finally start to work on its own, and the state will be able to step aside. The problem is that patriotic sagas don't pay off: they're too expensive to produce. Another problem is that no one knows yet how the refund will be provided. Newsweek's interlocutors talk only about the idea of ​​rotating the "market leaders" receiving support: developing criteria for assessing the success of investments - cash, prizes, etc. - and then replacing the two least successful companies at the end of the term.

The producers list the advantages of the new system. Firstly, there are many windows instead of one Ministry of Culture (see Dmitry Meskhiev's interview on page ???). Secondly, it is easier to plan. “If you don’t know that within two or three years you will be making three or four films, you cannot afford to keep specialists on a permanent basis,” says producer Igor Tolstunov. But producers from small companies complain that supporting large ones is inefficient. The leaders themselves also need to be supported, says producer Elena Glikman. Her low-budget "Peter FM" collected a good box office. “I have fears that the money will go, among other things, to the maintenance of the layer company, and directly to the producers the minimum will be unfastened, for which it will be impossible to do something normally,” she is afraid.

Under the new system, “neither Popogrebsky, nor Zvyagintsev, nor Serebrennikov would have appeared - this would not have happened if the Ministry of Culture had not supported debut and author films,” says Alexander Atanesyan. Rafael Akopov, president of the ProfMedia company, says that he persuaded officials to leave money to the Ministry of Culture to finance debutants: “In order for Eisenstein to make Battleship Potemkin, he must first make two films that we don’t know and will never see ".

However, 850 million rubles at the same time for animation, sci-pop, debuts and arthouse is definitely not enough money, says Atanesyan. True, the total amount of state funding is not so serious as to count on a full-fledged response to Hollywood. “All state support is the budget for the Shrek cartoon. Or half of Avatar, Atanesyan gets excited. “You can’t consider yourself a great cinematic power and fight for the Shrek budget!”

The highest-grossing domestic film “The Irony of Fate. Continued "(2008)

The sequel to the main New Year's film, which collected 1 billion 238 million rubles or $49.92 million in the CIS (excluding Ukraine) in 2008, became not only the highest-grossing Russian film, but for another year was considered the highest-grossing film in the Russian box office, even taking into account foreign tapes. In second place was "Ice Age-3". However, in the New Year 2010, Timur Bekmambetov's tape lost the lead to James Cameron's Avatar, which collected $ 76.96 million in the CIS by mid-January. Nevertheless, The Irony of Fate-2 remains the most profitable Russian film - the budget was 10 times less than fees.

The most expensive film to produce (for the period from 2006 to the first half of 2009) "Inhabited Island" - 2 parts (2009)

Fyodor Bondarchuk spent 800 million rubles on the film adaptation of the novel by the Strugatsky brothers, and this budget was barely covered by the box office of 848 million rubles. However, given that "Inhabited Island" was released in two series, then each of the two parts will yield to the production budget of the tapes "Taras Bulba. Zaporozhian Sich" (2009, 462 million rubles) and "Mongol" (2007, 434 million rubles).

The lowest-grossing domestic film "Piter FM" (2006)

With a budget of only about $1 million (29 million rubles), debutant director Oksana Bychkova managed to make a film that was included in the list of the highest-grossing Russian films in the box office in the CIS. And although the total amount of fees was small - 196.5 million rubles, it exceeded the cost of producing the tape by 6.8 times. Similar figures are for Alexander Strizhenov's film Love-Carrot (2007), with a budget of 38.3 million rubles, the fees amounted to 300 million rubles, as well as Rezo Gigineishvili's film Heat, for which 43.4 million rubles were spent, and brought in 400 million.

The most successful Russian film in the box office of the European Union "Night Watch" (2004)

In 2005, Timur Bekmambetov's film based on the works of Sergei Lukyanenko broke the European attendance record for Russian cinema: 1,735,952 people. This was equal to 40% of the Russian audience of the Night Watch. In the same year, another 333,000 moviegoers visited other Russian films in Europe.

The most failed film "Code of the Apocalypse" (2007)

The film with Anastasia Zavorotnyuk, shot by the Patriotic Cinema Support Fund, became a disaster for Russian cinema. With a budget of 383.3 million rubles ($15 million), it grossed only 200 million rubles (about $8 million) in CIS cinemas and another $2.45 million abroad. Thus, the militant Vadim Shmelev did not pay off his own production by a third.

Sources: research “Film industry of the Russian Federation”. "Nevafilm", November 2009; Kinopoisk.Ru, Newsweek own calculations