Translated material
Why don't the Russians come?
Former program director of the Moscow Film Festival, cultural scientist, professor Kirill RAZLOGOV believes that the problem is actually that Russian cinema is simply not integrated into the international festival process.
-- First of all, who determines the festival demand or the fashion for names and films?
— The festival film stream has its own patterns and nuances, which are associated both with the entry of films into the competition and with the resonance they cause. In fact, the festival context determines about a hundred people around the world. And I am very sorry that I was never able to convince the management of the MIFF to invite these people to Moscow.
- Who are these people - art directors, selectors, lobbyists?
— Until the recent past, these were exclusively critics writing in major newspapers and magazines, as well as in influential film publications. From Russia, these hundred people most likely include only Andrei Plakhov, who is the president of FIPRESCI. Recently, the role of festival program directors has increased. Gilles Jacob and Thierry Fremont in Cannes, Marco Muller in Venice, formerly Moritz de Hadeln in Berlin - all of them were to a certain extent trendsetters. This is due to the displacement of films that are interesting from an artistic point of view from the current repertoire of cinemas into the “ghetto” of festival screening. Criticism has retained its role, but in the form of resonance for selected works (unselected ones in most cases drop out of circulation altogether). Russian critics and these people have completely different criteria for evaluating films. A classic example of this kind was the painting “The Widow from the Island of Saint-Pierre” in the MIFF competition. The international jury of FIPRESCI excluded it from the list of first considerations because it is a big-budget movie with big stars that does not need the support of critics. The jury of Russian critics gave the prize to her. That is, most of our critics, in the naivety of neophytes, are impressed by what is already known, and those people who make fashion in cinema are looking for the debut of an independent Chinese director, an Iranian underground filmmaker, something exotic from Africa.
- But still, the Cannes competition is always half a parade of generals. And Iranian underground workers also get into the MIFF competition. What's the difference?
- Iranian underground fighters are not appreciated in any way by domestic criticism. They don't review their films. We have a very strong dictate of famous names. But famous names were made many years ago, and not by us. The current chairman of the Cannes jury, Wong Kar-wai, who is still being discovered in Russia, was discovered 15 years ago. The hundred people I'm talking about are looking for names that need to be promoted today.
— Isn’t this what Andrei Zvyagintsev’s phenomenon was all about?
- He found himself in a favorable festival situation, but at the same time he made a worthy picture without having this situation in mind. The film “The Return” arrived at the Venice Film Festival on time, successfully playing on the contradictions between the festival management, the jury and Italian critics.
- It turns out that the jury’s pure love for the film is impossible?
- Just like in life, for such love to happen, you need to take a lot into account. The main thing is to be in the mood, so that the gaze falls where it needs to, etc. The same people, but in a different situation and in a different mood, will pass each other. These are very subtle mechanisms that do not boil down to whether a film is good or bad, whether you like it or not. It is important how opinions are formed in this narrow environment. Sometimes you can put a lot of effort into paying attention to a movie, but it just doesn't work. Sometimes everything happens without much effort.
- So, only Andrei Plakhov can be our lobbyist? What should he lobby for?
— There will always be something to lobby for. The trouble is that we are not integrated into this process at all - we are not there. The individuals whom festivals consult during selection are not lobbyists, but experts on the state of Russian cinema. The conjuncture is formed by fashions. These fashions arise in waves under certain circumstances - there are clever PR technologies, there is a hunger for a certain type of cinema. For example, Iran makes up for the lack of a simple plot, uncomplicated by formal refinements, by presenting a modern type of neorealism to festivals. There are political problems that concern the center-left intelligentsia, to which 90 of those hundred people belong. And then there is a wave of awards in Berlin or Locarno, which are given only to politically oriented films. Among them may be the great, in my opinion, Palestinian painting “Divine Intervention,” or maybe some nonsense that no one will remember in six months.
-Where is the wave going today?
- It is obvious that the wave has gone to the Near and Middle East, since something is happening there all the time, some kind of collisions arise, and universal problems and private tragedies excite the world community. Therefore, the cinema of Israel, Palestine, and Iran is of increased interest. At the last Moscow festival, I was surprised to discover that the competition centered on seven films that were in one way or another related to the Middle East. But I didn’t plan this - we just chose good pictures. None of our critics noticed this, except after the fact. It is clear that this is how large festivals work, as they intuitively sense this conjuncture.
— If everything remains at the level of feeling, then how can one guess in which direction a film should be made in order to get into the festival circuit?
- I think that making a film on purpose, trying to find the festival market, is pointless - you will always miss it. The production cycle - from concept, application and search for funding to the final result - is three years, during which everything can change.
— It turns out that our authors can only be content with the Moscow festival and the fact that it retains class “A” at least formally?
- You can be content with anything. But you can get to the epicenter of the process only at three festivals - in Cannes, Venice and Berlin. They are also joined by the festival in Toronto, which formally does not have class “A”. They don't insist too much on the right of the first night - they can take a film that premiered at another festival. Because Toronto is a platform for promoting European cinema in America. From a film business point of view, this is the second festival after Cannes.
Approximately 400 paintings are currently shown in Berlin. There are officially about a hundred in Cannes, plus more than a thousand on the film market. Venice selects 350 films for its programs; as a result, 700 films are strictly blocked in terms of deadlines just before the end of the selection of the Moscow and Karlovy Vary festivals. Only Locarno can pick something up if Venice refuses. In essence, if we take it all in all, the 1,200 best films are lost to the MIFF, since it cannot guarantee their worldwide promotion.
Locarno, San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary are second-tier festivals with which the Moscow festival can compete in terms of the composition of films and pull films into its program. All things being equal, Eastern European films are more likely to be sent to Karlovy Vary, Spanish-language films to San Sebastian, and Koreans will come to us. But Rotterdam, which is not formally included in this group, is at the same level in the table of ranks, because its organizers wisely found a niche for themselves. This is a forum for everything radical in cinema, that which has difficulty making its way to other festivals. For example, Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s film “4” went unnoticed in Venice, ending up at the wrong festival, but in Rotterdam it became a sensation, then traveled around the world, and now Khrzhanovsky Jr. calmly presents his future project “Dau” in Cannes, in the “ Atelier" to obtain funding.
— So it’s still important to find the right festival for a film?
-- Certainly. The same Zvyagintsev had invitations from three festivals - Locarno, Montreal and Venice. And he was in the right place at the right moment. Even those festivals that were offended by his refusal later said: you were right, “Return” would not have received the Grand Prix here.
— How do you assess the chances of our current cinema getting into the three cherished festivals?
— Theoretically, there are chances. And here's how it's done practically. This year we are crying because we have one film in Cannes, and even that one, as many of my colleagues consider, is marginal - “977” by Nikolai Khomeriki. And Germany is proud that it has ten films in the program of the Cannes Film Festival. Let's see what kind of films these are. Firstly, "Suburban Lights" by Aki Kaurismäki...
- Wait, this is a Finnish film!
- Not only that. Finland, Germany, France and Italy participated in its production. The main pusher was France. In principle, this is a good rule - to get to the Cannes Film Festival, you should have at least one French producer. Because it has weight for this festival. We only know one person - Joel Chapron, who, alas, does not have much weight in Cannes, but in Russia he looks like a major figure.
We continue to deal with Germany. The Wind That Shakes the Barley by Ken Loach is a co-production between the UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain. The Un Certain Regard program opens with the project Paris, I Love You, consisting of 20 short stories shot by different directors, including two Germans, Oliver Schmitz and Tom Tykwer. The film “To Go to Heaven You Must Die” by Jamshed Usmonov was produced in France, Germany, Switzerland and, by the way, Russia. While we say everywhere that we have only one film in Un Certain Regard, the Germans consider Usmonov’s film partly theirs. And we’re not even psychologically ready for this: two years ago we had a hard time convincing ourselves that Guka Omarova’s “Shiza,” which had a great run at festivals, was our film. And there the producers were Sergei Selyanov and Sergei Bodrov. Even this year, there are two films in Un Certain Regard that Germany counts as its own: “You Are Me” (Lithuania-Germany) and “Paraguayan Hammock” (France-Germany-Netherlands-Argentina-- Paraguay). If we were also integrated into the world film process, then there would be several films with our participation in Cannes, Venice and Berlin.
- How can you integrate into it?
- First of all, do not disturb those few who are already integrated there.
- And who is this?
-- Alexander Sokurov, Alexey German Sr., Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrei Konchalovsky and to a certain extent, meaning France, Pavel Lungin. From the younger generation, this is German Jr., for whom his last name also helps, Andrei Zvyagintsev, although it is not clear what kind of picture he will make, but they will be waiting for him, and Ilya Khrzhanovsky. And this is not so little and bad.
- What should the rest of us do?
-- The problem of international integration is solved, as in any other industry, by creating joint projects and gradually turning Russian events into international ones. But here everything is exactly the opposite: in the six years that I worked at the MIFF, it, against my will, turned from an international festival into a national get-together, which was greatly facilitated by the rise of film production and terrible enthusiasm for it. International participation began to be perceived as something marginal, alien, harmful and expendable. Except, of course, for the stars, who can be shown live. To prevent this from happening, the festival management had to use an effort of will to oppose this trend and work differently, enduring financial costs and endless publications that the films in the competition were bad.
Why did I spend a lot of effort to create a project market at the Moscow festival? To bring producers and authors here. But no one was interested in this. Last year I organized this producers’ seminar with my own money, which the “rich” festival still hasn’t returned to me. Now this idea has gone to Kinotavr, where the management consists of people of a completely different formation, and they found money for it in their own pocket. It turns out that the only thing that can give legitimacy to our festival in the international context (the usual film market in Moscow, of course, is meaningless) is of no interest to the MIFF management. That is, the processes we are talking about are not interesting. And it’s interesting to guess what.
- You can guess. Nevertheless, when Zvyagintsev received all his orders and medals in Venice, he immediately got an appointment with Putin. Doesn't this indicate that the state is interested in creating an international image of Russian cinema?
- There is a big difference between the interests of the state and the intentions of officials. The main thing that blocks the process of joint production is customs barriers - technical, financial, organizational. Therefore, co-production with Russia is a headache for everyone. Government policy makes it impossible to transfer money or equipment across borders without major problems. Only people who have Mikhalkov’s weight can do this painlessly. However, there are other methods that we also abandoned. There is Eurimages - the European Co-production Fund of the Council of Europe. It so happened that I was the representative from Russia in the Council of Europe for Culture. Since 1994, every ten days, meeting with one of our cultural leaders, I said that we need to join Eurimages, because this is the very kitchen where joint production is brewed.
- How?
- The participating states contribute money there, then it, along with other contributions, is distributed between the countries. Of course, it is not without problems and pitfalls. Because Russia, as a country with large film production, will be required to make a large contribution, but there is no guarantee that the money will return here. This structure is most beneficial to small cinemas that produce two or three films a year, and if one of them is made with the participation of Eurimages, then we can consider that the contribution has paid off. To cover our contribution, we need to receive support for ten projects, which is unlikely. However, for everything there are pushers and lobbyists, of whom, however, we have few. But we didn’t join Eurimages when they really wanted us, and Russia was in fashion. They even reduced our contribution from six million to two. The state said: let the Ministry of Culture pay this fee from its budget. But what kind of official would release money from his hands to some kind of Europe? The business was ready to give this amount, but in return it demanded firm guarantees that the money would definitely return to Russia in the form of joint projects. The question has reached a dead end. Nevertheless, it is from these contributions that all the European co-productions that are included in the festival programs emerge. Ultimately, it all comes down to the Ministry of Finance, which demands that we leave international cultural organizations, that this is a waste of money, that participation in UNESCO is not beneficial - fortunately, UNESCO has a section of fundamental science, but here no one will argue that it brings in billions. While this trend is developing in our country, there is a growing reluctance to contact us. Let's say in France there was a fund for joint projects with Eastern Europe. And, remember, there were quite a few films made as co-productions that ended up in Cannes. But now they have created the “South” fund, from which projects such as films by Guka Omarova or Jamshed Usmonov are financed.
- Well, good, God bless them with the funds. But there is an initiative of the directors and producers themselves...
- Why do they need this? They know perfectly well how and what to talk about in their offices with officials from Roskultura, but they are terrified of even the prospect of having conversations in Strasbourg. They have no idea who, how and why will resolve their issue, what internal waves there are, ideas, how to find a co-producer. What can I say, none of our cinematography directors, except Shvydkoy, speak foreign languages, none of the management of the Moscow festival, unlike the selection committee and the Interfest apparatus, also knows languages. Where do we get lobbyists and where does interest in the Moscow festival come from? So those hundred people who make fashion in world cinema simply cannot see us at the moment - they don’t know us, and we don’t want to know them.