Translated material
Sovereign business
“We do not intend to continue to finance projects that are clearly denoting, anti -historical character, which spat on our history and the affairs of our ancestors,” said Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, reporting to the State Duma deputies for the results of 2014.
The New Times has found out what film projects of 2015 the Ministry of Culture considered worthy financing 
Rimeking paroxysm will begin for a year late to the anniversary of the First World War (will be released at the end of February), but still the expected film of director Dmitry Meskhiev “Battalion”. The plot: the women's battalion of the suicide bombers on the orders of the Provisional Government goes to the German Front and there shows the miracles of heroism. The picture is remembered by the deputy of the State Duma, Maria Kozhevnikova (the United Russia faction) and screaming bad bass in the genre “Servant to the Tsar, Father Soldiers” by Maria Aronova. The Minister of Culture personally visited the set in St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg.
In 2015, the 70th anniversary of the victory in World War II fell, and it is not surprising that from the twelve game copyright paintings that received the help of the state, five are devoted to this particular topic. Of course, they did not refuse the help of the work of Andrei Konchalovsky “Vika” - about Princess Vera Obolenskaya, who participated in French resistance. Principles and princesses are now again in high esteem, they are no longer shown hilariously rumbling enemies of Soviet power.
The painting by Fedor Popov “Corridor of Immortality” will tell about the events in the blockade Leningrad and the girl who became a member of the construction of the Shlisselburg railway, known as the “corridor of immortality”. The events of 1944 are dedicated to another film closed by the Ministry of Culture: in Kirill Belevich, Soviet troops save the deaf -mute Polish orphans.
In the paroxysm of the Rimeyking, which covered the country, the ministry also supported the “zori here are quiet” Renata Davletyarova - with glamorous girls and pretty Peter Fedorov and the “chairman” of Alexei Muradov, the plot of which resembles the famous film with Mikhail Ulyanov of the same name.
Two more paintings from the category of “copyrights” are turned into the past: “Spitak” by Alexander Cotta - to the recent, “constellation of Mary” Alexander Borisov - to the remote. What Spitat talks about, it is clear from the name - about the terrible earthquake of 1988 in Armenia. As for the “constellations of Mary”, here - the 18th century, the North now fashionable, a marine officer with a brave wife and, according to the director himself, “a certain patriotic intensity”. How to not give money for a patriotic intensity? Dali, of course.
The sovereign blockbusters were a little worse in terms of state money with Peter Buslov with his “Baptist” - a picture of Prince Vladimir. An expensive project (“The budget over 15 million is a very large historical picture,” the director himself explains) at first either did not cause enthusiasm among the experts of the Ministry of Culture, or they decided that Buslov was able to help the Russian Orthodox Church, which was in sponsors, but gave the money on a partial return. And, yes, shooting will be held in Crimea with the assistance of the State Council of Crimea.
Already launched in production and at the beginning of next year should shake the viewer with a fresh thought about the exclusivity and superpower of Russia, the “Thunderer” blockbuster. In the plot, harmful Americans tear off the tests of the Russian superiter, but guess who will eventually win and who will be shameful? And guess who controls this super -wire? That's right: Bezrukov. The film will mainly be shot with the money of the Ministry of Defense, but the creators of the tape received 55 million from the Ministry of Culture.
Special hopes are assigned to the animated patriotic blockbuster "Sergius of Radonezh", which is now in the production of "Da-Studio". The Minister of Culture has already called it the "Russian animated" avatar ". It was difficult to say what he meant by this, because already published personnel from the film so far demonstrate a dull pseudo -Orthodox rhetoric, coupled with a murderously banal image. According to the creators of the tape, the film shows "the development of one of the greatest saints - from childhood to holiness." Of course, there will be many domes and blorying dialogs. And the authors assure that they will collect about 850 million rubles in the box office, and their sense of humor is commendable. The creators of another unclenity tape - “Murom. The story of Peter and Fevronia ”, promising the cashier of 600 million. True, and their budget is more modest - 290 million against almost 400 million from Sergius.
“We have all the cinema is patriotic because it is shot for state money,” said Vladimir Bortko, film director, deputy chairman of the State Duma Culture Committee. - True, no one ever gave such attitudes - they say, make a patriotic movie. But for me - yes, the movie turns out to be patriotic, because I shoot for my country, but I like the country in which I live. "
Since last year, the Ministry of Culture also took up the help of patriotic series. In the near future, the series "Sevastopol is ordered to surrender!" -On the battle for Sevastopol, the “Young Guard”-about the famous Krasnodar group of underground, “Earth-Air”-about the team of Soviet missilers who went to Vietnam in 1965 to fight with the Americans, “Chernobyl”-about the confrontation of Soviet intelligence and the CIA against the background of the catastrophe, the screen biography of the famous intelligence officer, “Cinemators. To love to live ” - about how Stalin personally saved valuable films, which later formed the basis of the famous film“ Moscow makes a response blow ”.
Increase 
The hope and pride of the Ministry of Culture - “Vasilisa” by Anton Sivers about Vasilisa Kozhina, who headed a partisan detachment in 1812, cost $ 7 million. However, at the exit, this picture showed that Gulkin’s nose is not the limit of the minimum. $ 302 thousand at the box office is not even a crack, it is already fanfare. The heavyweight “Poddubny” with a worthy of such a large man with a budget of $ 12 million performed a little better - he collected a little more than half of the spent in the box office.
The editor -in -chief of the magazine "Art of Cinema" Daniil Dondury is sure that the patriotic movie will have a sad rental fate next year. “Such films will continue to fail at the box office,” he believes. - Those who give them money do this not for the viewer, but for their leadership. This is a familiar Soviet tradition. In words they will report on the generous investment of Russian patriotic cinema, but young people, for whom all this, by the way, is being started, will watch American products. So the money for patriotic cinema is thrown out money. ”
But the famous director Andrei Proshkin is not ready to reproach the state for planting love for the homeland by means of cinema. “In our society, now there is a desire to tell him what we are all good, and especially how good we were before. The trend for patriotism exists not only in power, it is also inside society, it is a mutual movement. There is another problem: our cinema has become very monotonous stylistically and thematically. A huge number of agites are being removed from us - there are agites that excessively praise the past, but there are many who are trying to cross out the same methods. As a result, a good movie is generally washed out of the process, and really talented people cannot break through, they are drowning in the amount of foam raised. ”
And who are the judges? The director of the new Institute of Culturology, Kinoved Kirill Razlogov sees the problem in the wrong sense of patriotism by those who allocate money for the cinema. “What is a patriotic movie? These are films that fit into the ideas of the nation about values. There are two opinions about what a patriotic work is. Someone believes that you need to open problems. Someone-that you need to shoot exclusively about victories. And then everything rests on how the patriotism of those who give money are understood. But are the films of Lutsik and Samorobiv, the paintings of Alexei Balabanov are not a patriotic movie in the true sense of the word? ”
In the presentation of the Ministry of Civil Code and the Film Foundation - the structures responsible for the distribution of state money to cinema - patriotism in the cinema is not conceived outside the military subject. And not just a military, but victorious. For some time now, we have any historical cinema in the same way: scripts are studied in the Russian military-historical society (the chairman is all the same Vladimir Medinsky) for historical reliability. Often experts block film projects in accordance with their ideas about the truth in art - for example, last year they rejected the script of Peter Todorovsky “Meeting on the Elbe”. Apparently, the front -line soldier Todorovsky had much more blurred ideas about the events in which he participated than the associates of Vladimir Medinsky.
Goethe, not the most stupid person in the world, said: "There is neither patriotic art nor patriotic science." He would definitely not have been taken to the experts of the Ministry of Culture.
Photo: kinopoisk.ru