Translated material
To your favorite rake
At first glance, what would be better? We now produce a lot of films, almost all of which involve government money, but few of them are shown. Several blockbusters, a dozen low-budget films a year in wide release - this is clearly not enough; in the provinces, movie lovers complain that they have nowhere to watch the famous and widely discussed auteur film; domestic producers are in despair over “vertical distribution” - a good film simply does not have time to attract an audience, since it is shown in cinemas for no more than two weeks, or even less...
But most importantly, the audience for quality cinema is definitely not growing - Russian or Western, it makes no difference. Films that gather quite decent audiences in small European countries fail in Russia. Very often, excellent films that have received important international awards are simply not bought by our distributors, because there is “no audience” for them. Those few producers and distributors who, out of sheer enthusiasm, are engaged in auteur cinema in our country, assure us that there are 50 thousand such viewers throughout Mother Rus'. And that’s all. And their number is not increasing. And no one knows why... The senators are not interested.
Russian Minister of Culture and Mass Communications Alexander Sokolov told senators that according to the plan, by 2010 the share of Russian films at the box office should be 22%. However, in his opinion, “this is an unjustifiably low rate.” Let's go faster, they say.
But here's what's interesting. Until recently, all television viewers watched mainly Mexican TV series, and also American ones. They also talked about dominance then, but several years have passed and all channels are filled with domestic products. And today the problem is how to attract viewers to Western quality series, which sometimes you just want to show the public how well they are made, but no - the majority prefers to watch their own, sometimes very bad, whipped-up creations. And no, mind you, quotas.
Of course, our auto industry also wants to ban the import of imported cars so that everyone buys domestic ones. But do car enthusiasts, who with manic persistence switch to foreign cars at the first opportunity, want this?
In cinema there is no direct relationship between popularity and quality. And native, domestic realities are still more interesting to the common person than foreign and unfamiliar ones. But honestly, are there many films in Russia today that audiences are ready to watch? Let's remember the Soviet Union, state rentals and complete state control. Yes, Gaidai’s comedies were watched very willingly, but most Soviet films had unenviable box office sums, and the difference was compensated by showing American, French, and most importantly, Indian films... Have they forgotten about double screenings, where the Hollywood hit was shown first, and the audience was attached to it? some Soviet film that everyone walked away with after paying for a ticket for two films?
What is it that is so compelling to solve problems with a simple Bolshevik onslaught? Ban, punish, and finally just put in prison, as suggested by the general director of Mosfilm, Karen Shakhnazarov, a fighter against pirates, confident that if not only producers, but also sellers are imprisoned, this will solve the problem.
A simplified understanding of the situation and, accordingly, very simple measures to solve the problem - this scourge of Soviet managerial incompetence is still in use among our independent reformers. 80-year-old director Vladimir Naumov is confident: it is important to restore high-quality Russian cinema, on which the viewer can be educated and, most importantly, not miss out on the younger generation. Well, he can think like that, but he can’t be seriously guided by it, can he?
Do respected filmmakers have answers to the simplest questions? For example, why don’t cinema owners want to take Russian films? I offer several possible answers. A) Most domestic films do not have sufficient audience potential. B) The advertising budget of domestic films does not allow for promotion of the film. C) Producers are not ready to guarantee the appearance of the film on time, and cinemas make their plans a year in advance. D) Cinemas deal with ready-made packages from Western studios, and they are uncomfortable working with single projects. D) American partners prohibit Russian cinemas from taking domestic films. E) Other.
Defenders of quotas refer to Western experience. Yes, there was a time, in Europe quotas were introduced for Hollywood films, but then this measure was abandoned, but they began to take interest from the ticket in support of national cinematography. From any ticket, including a national film.
Question two. The senators were enlightened: there are modern cinemas in only 20% of Russian cities (1,500 screens in total). For comparison: in America there are 39 thousand, and in smaller France - 5 thousand. We need at least 2000 for advertising efforts to start paying off. But why can’t we believe that the missing cinemas can be built with the help of political will? Just a few years ago, the number of cinema halls in Russia was growing at a gigantic pace, but now their number is almost not increasing. Why? Yes, because in million-plus cities everything has already been built, and in small cities it is unprofitable to build new multiplex cinemas. The state has long had a project for digital mobile cinemas, but for some reason they still haven’t appeared. I suspect that this is very unprofitable from a commercial point of view. Or requires difficult decisions. But we can only do simple ones. Today it is much easier to raise the ticket price. In addition, the viewer goes to the cinema not so much for a film or even for a collective experience, but for the sake of a party - in a modern space, which, in addition to the film, includes cola, popcorn, and slot machines... The owners of cinema halls do not hide that that the income from the rental itself is not their only profit. So what now? Will we nationalize cinemas? Of course, relying on the state is an ancient habit of the Soviet intelligentsia, which the state tore at, but also fed. Finding themselves in a wild field of competition and direct confrontation with the public, corrupted not only, I want to note, by a decade of freedom, but also by seven decades of Soviet democracy, where, it must be said, there were not only gingerbread, our creators were very scared and began to ask to be returned to the state pocket. They willingly support state orders, state projects... Moreover, our society, they say, is... Well, not consciously or something. Therefore, everything good and eternal should be brought to the people by the state. And it’s okay that he didn’t do it well before.