The right to art

In November in Moscow, in a cafe club "Pir.G.I. On Sretenka ”, an experimental filmmap named after McGaffin has opened. "Polit.ru" and "Film School named after McGaffin ” is invited to deal with the film -hare, talk about a movie with those who do it, get acquainted with all creative film professional, as well as watch movies, know about the cinema.

Artem Aleksandrovich Vasiliev , born in 1970, graduated from the History Department of Moscow State University. Lomonosov. Metrafilms general producer . Since 1993 - advertising producer, one of the founders of the NPPR - Association of Advertising Manufacturers. Since 2005 - the producer of the cinema.

The producer of the films of Alexei German - the younger - “Paper Soldier”, “Under the Electric Clouds” (in production), the project of Ilya Khrzhanovsky “Dau” (until 2009), the film of Andrei Khrzhanovsky “One and a half rooms or a sentimental travel to homeland”, “Phenomenon of Nature” by Sergey Osipyan and Alexander Lungin, “Experiment 5 IVE ” with the participation of 5 IVE . Alexei Popogrebsky, Peter Buslov, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Igor Voloshin and Alexander Veledinsky.

“Polit.ru”: Tell me, what are you seeing the main problems in the modern Russian and world film industry?

Artem Vasiliev : What are the problems in the cinema in Russia and in the world? It seems to me that the main problem is both in Russia and in the world that the cinema has ceased to be the bearer of a certain magical power as it was several decades ago. We know very well that there is the so-called "entertaining movie", a filmatrament, which is obviously in demand by a large number of spectators. In Russia, these spectators belong to the young generation. The world is slightly wider, but these are those people who come to obtain a certain set of joys or fears in the process of viewing. They have a fairly understandable task, they want to load their emotional apparatus by obtaining certain impressions, the impressions enter their heads and fly out of this head at the moment when the viewer leaves the hall. The movie, for watching which people are ready to pay money, is developing towards the attraction almost throughout the world, with rare exceptions, this segment is present everywhere and its popularity is growing.

On the other side,

The movie, which we call “complex” is a movie that is made for a more complex, thinking viewer, interested in cinema as a form of art, and it also loses this viewer today almost throughout the world, with very rare exceptions.

There is such an obvious problem, in Russia it is manifested much tougher, since it has happened so historically that in principle, in principle, for 15-20 years we lost a moviegoer. The mass of the audience that returned to the cinema is several million people - it is small, and about 70% of them under the age of 25. Respectively,

Spectators who would be interested in more complicated, author’s, arthouse cinema continue to watch it, but in the other way, for them this is no longer an act of joint experience, but a certain aesthetic pleasure that they mainly receive alone or in a small company.

In Russia, the modern "complex" cinema turned out to be driven into a certain ghetto. This is also due to the fact that many authors were so carried away by experiments with a cinema language and a film form that it came close to such a genus of modern visual art, which, by definition, are interested in fewer spectators, this is a type of contemporary art. Films have become largely works that are more interesting to their creators than to the public, which these creators do not really think about.

It seems to me that this is a comprehensive situation, and not only in Russia, it is quite complicated and is largely related to social processes, in Russia it is simply aggravated by external circumstances, such as the number of halls and the lack of the opportunity to watch different films. Anyway, the cinema has become unmasive. Natural science museums are now more popular than cinema.

But we call too many things the word "cinema", it sounds loudly. Cinema is very different art. I'm not talking about the fact that big Hollywood films are not an art. Of course, art, a lot of money is invested in them, and efforts, and crafts, and thoughts. When we are talking about the American mainstream and its distribution around the world - this is an attraction that has many fans in many territories. It is quite difficult for any national cinema to compete with it, this is also understandable. In some countries, the state can solve such problems, somewhere it is not able to do it.

Is the situation understandable in Russia? - The state supports the production of films a little money, and that’s all that goes from the state. There are no national cinema support systems in Russia. This is a lot about this on every corner, any movie community is always discussing this topic. But in reality, only one thing happens: two sources of obtaining state funding have been created, to which everyone related to film producing is trying to fall. With rare exceptions.

Polit.ru: What is the movie for you personally?

A.V. : I do not engage in cinema as a business, cinema is one of the areas of my business, unfortunately. It was enough a position when I began to make the production of films. I understood that the cinema that I was interested in making is now impossible to include in some understandable calculated business model. This was obvious to me according to some statistics that were present in the public domain.

Cinema for me is a way to be in a dialogue with people who are interesting to me, a way of realizing some creative ambitions,

But since I am not a director, creative ambitions are processed in me in production activities. For me, this is also a way to try different things in life. Cinema is a very synthetic art, and the point is not only that a huge number of people are involved in its production. It is desirable that these are people interesting to me, and those with whom I will be ready to spend a lot of time in conversations and joint work. Another movie for me is a way to declare my aesthetic addictions through the projects with which I deal. Also a movie is entertainment for me.

I am a fan of a qualitatively made genre cinema. Of course, I go to cinemas, I am an active cinema, buy these insanely dear tickets in Russia, I go with my family, with children. This is a majority of my life and what I spend a lot of time on.

Polit.ru: And how did you come to production?

A.V. : I have a humanitarian basic education, I am a historian, I graduated from the History of the Moscow State University. I was engaged in the history of the Russian theater of the late XIX -early XX centuries, my diploma at the university was dedicated to this. In parallel, he was engaged in journalism and wrote critical theatrical articles, historical articles about the theater. This was the beginning of the 90s, with the situation with historical science, it was very sad, and everything around was quite intense. I had to look for the option of applying to my forces, and then one of my comrades created a small private company, which I came to and became a partner. We began to earn money, inventing and making advertising, and then concentrated only on television advertising. The idea was that we would earn money and we will engage in cinema. Now for 10 years each of us has its own business, but, nevertheless, each of us came to the cinema differently-he is as a director, I am as a producer. This needed 12-15 years.

“Polit.ru”: And if we talk about your films, do you have a short list of films that made a deep impression on you?

A.V. : I really do not like such questions when I need to call books and films. There are many films that I am interested in reviewing, there are not 5, not 10, there are much more of them. In fact, these are very different films: some examples of wonderful films by Stephen Spielberg, classic cinema: Italian neorealism, several films of the German “New Wave”. But I am not a very “enjoyed” person, I have no movie formation.

The power of our film formation, despite its weaknesses, is that people come out of there very “enjoyed”. I did not study at VGIK, and I did not have such a system of film examinations. If you are in your environment, from time to time in a conversation some quotes pop up, and you want to know the source of these quotes. Naturally, if you do not know the source, you want to make up for this gap, especially when you are young and you have a lot of time. You are trying to pull yourself up to Wednesday if you are interested in it.

On the other hand, reading modern literature, in which there are references to films, but you have not seen these films, you have an obvious desire to watch. You find some films with surprise-I did not hear anything about the wonderful movie that was made 20-30 years ago, and you try to watch it in all possible ways. In fact, there is literature like “500 most correct films”, there are a million such options for books. I know that for generation of our children a powerful source of information is the social network VKontakte. Daughters, for example, say to me that they saw links to such and such films, and the films are quite complicated and serious, however, they receive information there. I do not use social networks, but I know that this is a rather powerful tool in our time.

Polit.ru: Where do you like to watch cinema - at home or in the cinema?

A.V. :

Probably in the cinema. You concentrate more on the cinema. But the cinema cinema is discord. For example, I do not really like to go to large shopping centers, multiplexes where you understand that you are watching a movie with a certain amount of fairly random audience for which a movie is an addition to a set of mandatory purchases.

This does not mean that they are a bad audience.

Acquaintance with a cinema in a certain society, when you watch it not alone - a very important element of the development of the film in principle, since you somehow feel the breath and reaction of the hall, react not only to the film, but also to the reaction of the audience, if they are involved in this film.

This stimulates and creates additional sensations, if only the right hall and the right audience.

“Polit.ru”: Do you think there are enough platforms in our country to discuss cinema, for talking about cinema, for movie aids?

A.V. : Are there enough sites? Of course, they are not enough. There are most of the spectators who wanted to go to the cinema and watch cinema in cinemas, but they do not come there even because of the high cost of tickets, and because they do not feel that there are places that are created for them. For the same reason, they do not want to go to the halls with large multiplexes and malls. It seems to me that the question is that

There was a large 20-year pause for these spectators, they were wealthy, they have no places about which they understand that they can come and watch a movie with their own kind, discuss it, exchange impressions, see different movies, move from one hall to another. There is now actively talking about the fact that alternative rental networks should be created,

And the statistics are obvious. If we are talking about cinema as mass art, the method of consumption of which is based on the “distribution” of the maximum number of people, then the number of halls that exist in Russia currently is not enough for the Russian population.

We have about 2000-3000 halls, and in America 37,000 or so.

“Polit.ru”: And Internet forums can become a platform for discussing a movie?

A.V. : Of course they can, they are. From time to time I look into the discussion of the films that I have to do with - these are real discussion platforms, this is obvious.

Polit.ru: in this case, maybe there are enough of them?

A.V. : The fact is that cinema is a fairly expensive pleasure in terms of its creation. High -quality cinema costs money, and therefore the main way to financing it, if you do not take grants, subsidies and gifts, is, of course, receiving at least part of the money from the audience who watched this movie. Is the Internet this site? If on the Internet everything happened according to the law and everything would always be legally, then, of course, this is a powerful platform. But this is the same question as "is any discussion club on-line the equivalent of the same off-line club?" - Of course, not. Everyone sits in his shell, distracted by a lot of parallel things. In fact, these are just different forms, I think that the key is in the variety of these forms.

Even if people watched all films through the Internet and paid money for this, still the nature of the cinema implies some consumption in off-line regime, in the community.

Of course, there is a television movie, this is the same movie, just another means of delivery to the consumer. If the movie moves away from the possibility of showing a large audience with its lively reaction on large screens in large halls, the movie will not cease to be made from this, a large piece of living energy will simply disappear.

“Polit.ru”: you talked about the trend in the director’s reorientation on what is interesting to him, and not his viewer. At the sites on which you worked, how was the attitude to the viewer formulated? What is the whole position in the process of cinema creation?

A.V. : You know, I worked with projects from the Art-Kino segment, where experiments with form and content, of course, were primary and steps towards the viewer, we will not be honest, and specially were carried out. Another question is that judging by the reaction that we receive when the movie comes out, he has a spectator. The question is that the number of spectators who is ready to get up and go watch this movie to the cinema, unfortunately, is now small.

In reality, these viewers are much larger, so the question is what conditions should be created, how to convince the viewer, what halls should be in order for the viewer to get up and go to this hall to watch this particular movie.

I give an example all the time: we worked with Andrei Khrzhanovsky on the film “One and a half rooms”, based on Brodsky’s biography. In the hall of the 5 Stars cinema on Novokuznetsk, this film was watched by a very large number of people. There was one copy, and the fee was about 100 thousand dollars. If such halls about which the audience will know that they show a film that can make her think, and it will deliberately go to it, there were more in Moscow and other cities, these 100 thousand dollars could be increased many times. Thus, the cinema would get back the money that was invested in its production. This example taught me a lot.

There must be the right place, the right person must do this. Why do you go to one restaurant, but not to another? This is called the atmosphere - the people who work there and come there. The same in a sense and with cinema halls.

Either this is by definition of a movie in a large passing place, or it is still a thoughtful policy to create the right atmosphere.

Polit.ru: how do you think, how successful is the idea of ​​creating educational sites for the audience?

A.V. : It seems to me that this is the right thought.

All that can be done in order to expand the horizon of knowledge of art consumers must be done, this is obvious.

If this is a platform created by people who know the subject that they talk about, which is correctly programmed in terms of filling, then this is a good deed. It is wonderful and important. I was accidentally asked to read a small production course in one of the universities. I was sadly shocked by the basic level of knowledge of young people who are now getting higher education. Of course, if there is not enough internal forces for self-education, then we must try to offer some options. There is no much knowledge - there is a lot of information. And if it is correctly selected, this is a good deed.

“Polit.ru”: You yourself would not want to teach at such a school for the audience?

A.V. : Now there are a lot of conversations on the topic of teaching, lectures have become popular. Of course, it is interesting for me personally to try, and now I am trying some kind of such things in a small volume, this is an interesting exchange of energies. I probably would not want to make a constant activity out of this, because otherwise I will not have enough time for what I want and can do. From time to time, periodic inclusions in this process are interesting to me.

Polit.ru: The next question is related to a shortage of professions. Who is missing in the film industry today?

A.V. : This is another common issue of the modern film process. Many professions are not enough, and those people who own these professions are largely underclaimed: the second directors, specialists in digital technologies. Honestly, it’s easier for me to list those who are ... ..

The operator school has already had its own problems. We are faced with the fact that young people are lazy enough to know the technique with which they work, and its capabilities, and there are problems due to the volume of knowledge. I now turn on to some extent and television production, because there are a lot of intersections in the field of cinema and television. Due to the large volume of television production of cinema, it was very “exposed” in terms of the presence of professionals.

Few people, in fact, are not enough. Of those who are, you have to carry out a very long selection. Because a person who calls himself a professional, unfortunately, is far from always.

Polit.ru: Could you make a small forecast - what will be the future of the movie?

A.V. : Firstly, I really hope that the movie will not disappear. Думаю, что предпосылок к этому нет, несмотря на то, что мы обсуждаем какие-то болевые, проблемные точки, потому что вопрос кинотеатрального проката принципиален в России. Кино как форма искусства и развлечения, очевидно, будет развиваться. Этот тренд достаточно четко прослеживается по посещаемости семейных 3 D -анимационных мультфильмов. Если мы говорим про 50 лет от этой точки, я ничего не смогу сказать. Если мы говорим про 15-20 лет, мне кажется, экраны будут становиться больше, копии – качественнее, 3 D будет становиться еще более объемным. Хотя я не большой поклонник такого тотального увлечения 3 D , но делал в прошлом небольшой году проект в 3 D , и это было дико интересно.

С точки зрения кино как экспериментальной площадки, думаю, за счет развития технологий все большее и большее количество людей будет получать доступ к полупрофессиональным и профессиональным технологиям,

которые с технологической точки зрения будут выдерживать проверку большим экраном. С творческой – большой вопрос. Все бросились фотографировать с развитием цифровой фотографии, но от этого не стало больше хороших фотографов. The same is in the cinema. В российских условиях, когда человек, занимаясь экспериментальным кинематографом, раньше имел возможность доступа к большим бюджетам, теперь эта ситуация будет все более и более редкой. Какое-то время будет помогать государство, но постепенно это сойдет на нет. Встанет вопрос о поиске ресурсов, меценатских проектов. Они останутся, очевидно, они во все века существовали, но это будут штучные истории.

Потока арт-кино я не ожидаю. Будет сложнее доказывать свое право на арт. Среда очень сильно сопротивляется этому в России. Имею в виду не людей, а сами условия. Так или иначе, какой-то компромисс все-таки будет достигнут, но какой он будет, сейчас сказать очень сложно, есть разные мнения и мысли по поводу того, как все будет развиваться. Опять же, мы все время, каждый день в практике говорим: «О, это артхаус, а это мейнстрим». Думаю, что грани между артхаусом и мейнстримом тоже будут стираться. Кино не может существовать без зрителя.

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