Glove of infinity. Igor Sergeev - about Russian and non -Russian cinema

Last time events in the Russian film screening - the transfer of the premiere of the Avengers: Final "for the sake of the domestic tape and the rainbow report of the Minister of Medinsky on the unprecedented successes of Russian cinema - in fact, are episodes of the same process. We are talking about the active state support of domestic cinema or, as the Minister of Culture put it, "providing various kinds of market preferences."

You can treat this phenomenon differently and argue about the effectiveness of targeted budget costs. But when the federal minister issues fees in cinemas for the unconditional criterion of victorious qualitative growth, it is impossible to resist the parallel with the plot of the Avengers . Unlike the supervision of Tanos, the Minister of Medinsky is enough three stones of infinity - financial, administrative and political.

The financing stone is stored in the Film Fund. Every year, the Ministry of Culture through the Film Foundation gives out money for film production and support for rental of domestic films. This scheme has actually turned into a sponsorship of the Elitarian Club of Cinema Besars and the Cype of Conflicts of Interest. According to statistics, which is given by Medinsky, from 2012 to 2018, the collection of domestic films in cinemas increased from 6.1 to 13.8 billion rubles. It should be remembered that the cinema fund almost always allocates funds on an irrevocable basis, that is, the creators of the films should not return the state not a penny, no matter how much they earn. For example, of the 2.5 billion rubles provided for by the Ministry of Culture in 2019, only 30 million (just over 1%) will be allocated on the basis of a hundred percent repayment. It turns out that almost all recipients of state support should simply make a movie, which means that the billions indicated by Medinsky are almost entirely - net income of film producers. Is it worth boiling with increased fees when the ordinary viewer is forced to pay twice, for a ticket to the movie and for its production? It is completely unclear which "team gain" is stated by Medinsky.

But without a stone of administrative impact, such film brothers would hardly be possible. After all, we are talking about "unprecedented strict market competition with global Hollywood." The fact is that the Ministry of Culture not only controls the distribution of money to Russian film projects, but also issues rental certificates. If the ministry receives applications for films of a similar topic or genre that falls on the same dates, then asks the applicants to agree among themselves. If this is not done, then the ministry offers its dates for rental. In recent years, such manipulations have turned into a system. Three times, the superheroes of the Marvel universe were not lucky: in addition to the mentioned “finals”, the premieres of the “Altron” and “Infinity War” were transferred. Just in the Ministry of Culture were concerned about the cash success of the domestic paintings "billion", "And the dawns here are quiet ..." and "Sobibor", so the "Avengers" had to give them a place three times.

Only thanks to the public resonance “Infinity War” was returned to the original date. In each of these cases, the ministry was inferior to the Walt Disney Studios Sonya Reving Relus, a joint company of Disney and Sony , specially created for renting films in Russia. It actively rolls Russian paintings, especially those that have received financial support for the Ministry of Culture: since 2015 it is 32 domestic films, of which 26 projects supported the Film or the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, and every year the number of such tapes is growing. Foreign companies invest in the production of Russian paintings that the state supports: Sony Pictures participated in the production of Stalingrad, Attraction and Ice, and Disney - the Last Hero.

Domestic cinema is firmly competing with Hollywood with Hollywood

Since 2017, the key body for the issuance of budget money, the expert council of the Film Fund, a representative of Disney in the CIS Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan , has other foreign representatives. So the advisability of the film distributor in negotiations with the Ministry of Culture is quite natural. The final beneficiaries of Walt Disney Studios Sonya Sonya Pictors Release are The Walt Disney Company and Columbia Pictures Corporation Limited . In turn, “Walt Disney CIS” was established by TADA Incorporated and TSN Inc. One of the leaders of Eastern European Holdings Ltd is a member of the Expert Council of the Film Foundation Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan. So domestic cinema competes harshly with Hollywood with the help of Hollywood.

The political stone allows the Minister of Medinsky to stimulate the production of cinema on heroic-historical and patriotic topics, up to "manual regulation". In the films about the glorious victories of the past there is nothing bad, but in the artificial environment their excess is born, and quality, according to the assessments of critics, is more likely to suffer. Features of financing the film couple Tigran Keosayan and Margarita Simonyan "Crimean bridge" is a good example of what manual regulation leads to. A characteristic feature of state control of the domestic film review is the criteria for evaluating performance that the Ministry of Culture puts forward the Film Fund. Since 2017, the share of the films funded by the Film Film was supposed to be 80% of all released Russian films, and since this year the criterion formulation has become more cynical - 80% of the attendance of all domestic films. It turns out that the political stone helps Medinsky to supplant not foreign, but rather domestic independent cinema from cinemas.

Thus, in the domestic film screening, the coordinate system was formed, in which the money earned - a quality growth sign, artificial advantages - satellites of healthy competition, and a conflict of interest in the distribution of budget funds - only an unpleasant necessity. And in this system of coordinates of the logical and consistent, even the idea will seem to prohibit or limit the show of foreign cinema in domestic cinemas as much as possible so that Russian cinema will finally and irrevocably win. After such a click of the infinity of the film Elite will earn even more money, the Ministry of Culture will receive even more patriotic fantasy and reach planned indicators, and the viewer will be doomed to choose on the New Year's holidays between the next film about the heroic tank, the next “Christmas trees” and the temptation to stay at home.

Igor Sergeev - expert of the non -profit organization "Transpenseri International - Russia"

Opinions expressed under the section may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office