Gorky studio

cinema protocol Yesterday, Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy met with the staff of the Central Film Studio for Children's and Youth Films named after Gorky. Mr. Shvydkoy told the employees about what had happened in recent years and what would happen in the near future with their enterprise. ALEXEY Kommersant-KARAKHAN wormed his way into the studio’s working group to listen to the minister.
To begin with, the minister explained why he asked the current heads of the studio, Stanislav Ershov and Yuri Radashevich, to organize this meeting: “I didn’t want any confusion to arise at the studio due to the illusion of dual power.” The point was that the former director of the studio, Vladimir Grammatikov, who was fired by the Minister of Culture on March 20, managed to protest this decision in court (Kommersant wrote about this story). Mr. Shvydkoy spoke very flatteringly about Mr. Grammatikov himself, given the history of their conflict: “The talent of an artist does not always coincide with the talent of a manager.” Mr. Shvydkoy explained why he twice fired Mr. Grammatikov from the post of studio director.
The first time, in the spring, he did this because “many creators are integrated into the socialist production system and find it difficult to find themselves in new conditions. We gave Grammatikov carte blanche, which he did not use for the benefit of the studio. He made sure that everything the agreement did not materialize. The studio was on the verge of bankruptcy." And just in case, Mr. Shvydkoy explained why he did it a second time: “When we fired Grammatikov in the spring, he read the order and endorsed it, and the next morning presented a sick leave certificate, which means that according to the Labor Code we had no right to fire him. And the court ruled in favor of Grammatikov. After this, the continuation of our cooperation was impossible. We are bureaucrats and scoundrels, and it’s not worth playing such games with us. I reinstated him in accordance with the court’s decision and immediately fired him.”
Mr. Shvydkoy then focused on the future. The privatization of each enterprise can be divided into two main stages. First, they decide whether this company needs to be sold at all and, if so, who will do it. Gorky's studio has already passed this stage. Then they figure out who will buy the state property put up for sale and for how much. In relation to Gorky's studio, this remains to be seen. The name of the investor and the amount of the privatization deal for Gorky's studio have not yet been officially announced. These details were not announced yesterday either. According to Kommersant's information, most likely the buyer will be Vnesheconombank, and the transaction amount will be about $10 million. At first glance, Vnesheconombank's plans to invest that kind of money in a film studio, at least in the short term, seem like complete nonsense. Especially considering that Russian films continue to fail at the box office from time to time. But apparently the management thinks differently. Without mentioning the investors, Mr. Shvydkoy yesterday presented to the employees of the Gorky Studio a rough business plan that will allow the studio to become a profitable and investment-attractive enterprise.
According to the minister, with competent management, the studio will be liquid even without the rights to films made before 1992. The rights to the studio's film collection will remain the property of the state even after privatization. They will be managed by the Gorky Studio Film Fund, which, in particular, will pay the legally required royalties to the authors and their heirs. The factory itself, the Creative Production Association (TPO), pavilions, equipment, etc., will be “corporatized, put in order and begin to work.” Moreover, the division of the studio according to this scheme will occur before the end of July.
The prospects for TVET, according to Mr. Shvydkoy, are the most promising. The main speaker cited Mosfilm as an example: “They work three shifts here and they don’t have time to fulfill all the orders, since there is not enough capacity in Russia.” This is not surprising. This year, approximately the same number of films will be shot in Russia as in the Soviet years - about 70, in addition, television is producing about 200 hours of TV series and an uncountable number of commercials. Therefore, the minister advised the studio management not only to renovate the old pavilions, but also to build two or three new ones, one of which would be intended for filming television programs for children. In addition, Mr. Shvydkoy advised urgently equipping the recording studio with all the necessary equipment for dubbing films in the Dolby system: “This will require an investment of $600 thousand and will bring in $1.2 million annually.”
From all this it turns out that making films is still unprofitable, but providing services to those who make them can already bring quite decent dividends.

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 113 dated 07/03/2002, page 13

Mikhail Shvydkoy gave the command “motor!”