Cinema under supervision

The Ministry of Culture for the first time revealed the expenses of state billions on the cinema: the main thing

A significant, if not a revolutionary event, occurred in the Russian film industry. Information on state financing, fees, debts and losses of film production and rental was published.

A presentation of an open database on state support of a cinema through the Ministry of Culture of Russia and the Film Foundation since 2015 took place. Now, any person can find detailed information about film projects launched in production in different years, about producer, director, film company, budget, cash fees, production costs. And even find out how many times the film was shown on the screens. True, so far the system does not take into account marketing expenses, which can make the lion's share of the budget. And therefore, the payback results are approximate. It is known that the numbers spent on marketing are sometimes hidden. Well, how to calculate the time of advertising on the first dedicated to the film "Cinema Directorate" (producers Ernst and Maximov)?

Perhaps this is a matter of the future. The system that began to work on October 21 on the basis of the EAIS (a single automated information system of information about films in cinema calls) was proudly presented by Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. The database already contains information about 520 film projects of 255 companies. The minister promised that by January 1, almost all films will be supported by the support of the Ministry of Culture since 2008. And the Film Foundation since 2010. And this, of course, is a step towards the transparency of the industry, which feeds on myths.

Every year, the state allocates more than 5 billion rubles for the production of Russian films.

1. Since 2015, the company Sergei Selvanov was the champion in the volume of state support since 2015. Since 2015, 17 films have been released, for the production of which 165 million rubles of repayable and 921.3 million rubles were allocated. irrevocable funds. The total fees of these films in the rental amounted to 5.84 billion rubles.

2. In second place is the TRITE studio Nikita Mikhalkov, who concentrated on sports dramas and action (“upward movement”, “crew”, “coach”, in the production of the “world champion”) - received 50 million rubles. return and 992 million rubles. irrevocable funds; 5.17 billion rubles. fees).

3. Timur Bekmambetov completes the three three (299 million rubles and 740 million rubles of irrevocable funds were allocated for ten films; 3.81 billion rubles).

The most expensive for taxpayers in the history of domestic cinema was the Viking Andrei Kravchuk about Prince Vladimir. Since 2010–2015 The state allocated for the production and rental of the film 728 million rubles. The funds were received and mastered by the “Cinema Directorate” and “Channel One”.

Despite the movement to publicity, there are still many dark spots. After the presentation, experts said that in the future they hope to find out the true figures of the budgets of paintings, to understand the ratio of state investments and private means, the share of Russian participation in the project and foreign - although they all doubt the possibility of the complete transparency of the film industry.

Films that failed at the box office are also published. Of the 38 projects that have received 100 million rubles or more since 2015, the fees of fourteen lower than the state funds invested in them.

Among the films that have not paid for themselves “ Crimean bridge. Made with love ”from Tigran Keosayan and Margarita Simonyan. Having received 100 million irrevocable rubles, the creators of the patriotic comedy collected a little more than 70 million at the box office.

The low fees were in films of various genres, different qualities, and the level of directing. Among them are the “ duelist ” of Alexei Mizgirev and the “ icebreaker ” of Nikolai Khomerika. And also the adventure action of the “seven pairs of unclean” Kirill Belevich, who received 119 million rubles, collecting the cash desk of less than 1 million rubles (the KinoPoisk includes 4.3 thousand spectators who came to the picture).

Interest was aroused by information about the projects for which state reasons were allocated, but the audience did not see the films.

There is a list of organizations that received state support, but did not fulfill their obligations to the state. It has 18 film companies, among which, for example, Media Artia Studio, which received 110 million rubles. return and 30 million rubles. irrevocable for creating the film " Hero " with Dmitry Bilan in the title role (2016).

The total amount, not returned by debtors: 312 346 881 rubles of return funds and 514 048 350 rubles - non -reflected.

Recently, Vladimir Medinsky spoke about 20 trials of the Ministry of Culture with filmmakers who did not fulfill the conditions of state support. According to the minister, their presence in open black lists motivates debtors to return the money to the treasury. And while the debtors will be listed in a special registry, their applications for state support will not be considered.

* Among the debtors, the creators of the “ Secrets of the Snow Queen ” by Natalia Bondarchuk about an ice beauty who is unable to feel (returned funds-20,000 rubles. Irrevocable-5,300,000 rubles), the film was released with an extremely low rating, earned 169,270 rubles on the second weekend. With a budget 215 860 000 rubles!

• The film " Longing " according to Chekhov’s works disappeared without a trace. GUP "Cinema Studio" Chechenfilm "for - 21,850,000 irrevocable rubles, apparently did not report. The police opened a criminal case of fraud against the leadership and employees of the film studio. But the studio, which did not pay with the department, was eliminated.

• The producers of the long -faced project “ Elizabeth and Claudil ” by Sergey Solovyov, who received 25,555,000 rubles, did not report. irrevocable funds. This air story from the Silver Age is still in production.

• The painting “ Lavstory ” (“Seva Gorelov’s Dreams”) seemed to be released in 2017, and even with Alexander Petrov in the title role, but passed a pale shadow, and for a total of 25 million film companies “25th floor” did not report.

• A lot of noise in the media about the Blocbaster " Prophetic Oleg " of the company "Neuron" LLC. The press was originally announced by the non -: 308 million rubles, promising Peplum saturated with battles about Prince Russ Oleg, who "can unite scattered tribes, create a powerful state capable of rebuffers of all stripes." Neuron has remained 20 million to the budget. Moreover, on the site of Kino theater.ru budget - 9,000,000 rubles. The premiere of the film "Prophetic Oleg" Klima Shipenko, who during this time shot "Text" according to Glukhovsky, is still postponed.

Apparently, the presented system will be supplemented and updated in daily mode. It is only a set of data: any viewer, user has the opportunity to create his own rating, his own vision of Russian cinema. Moreover, a separate application dedicated to the viewer is already working - its portrait in the interior of domestic cinema. Over time, it will be possible to discover exactly how many spectators came to one session, how the information in the media, word of mouth, blogs work for success or the failure of the picture, blogs.

According to experts, the “open system” will help to fight corruption to some extent. This opinion is supported by both the Minister of Culture: "The new service disciplines both officials, producers, and members of expert councils." He admitted that the service did not cause enthusiasm in the market.

The producers are not too satisfied: “Well, I have not received a film of festival success, did not earn money. We assume that this is a creative failure. ”

Too successful producers also fear that their pockets will be considered funds. Medinsky said that among the goals of the new base there is no task "to climb into the business of organizations." There, for example, there is no data on fees. The service was created in the interests of taxpayers. And he is not only about money: “It is important how the movie was perceived by a professional community, festivals. As rolled at the box office. We will take into account the data of views on Internet sites. ” In any case, the opening of a new service is “upward movement”.

According to Vyacheslav Telnov, executive director of the Film Fund, investments in the project amounted to about 3 million rubles. How he will respond at the work of our film market, time will tell.

Oleg Berezin,

General Director of the Nevafilm studio

Of course, the publication of data on state financial support for film projects is a big step forward in ensuring the transparency of the use of taxpayers, but even a runaway analysis of these data gives rise to new issues to the mechanisms for allocating these funds.
On the one hand, looking at the results of the rating leaders, I wonder: why does the system for allocating irrevocable funds do not provide for the return of these “irrevocable” funds when the project receives a significant result?

Here is a simple mathematics: the leader of the rating project "Movement Up". 400 million irrevocable state funding, plus 190.2 million raised funds. The results in the film distribution - 2 943.5 million rubles. About 40% returns to the producer from cash fees (50% are taken by cinemas and 10% - a distributor). Let's add another 10% of the cost of release, advertising and promotion). We get a pure financial result of the producer - 880 million, of which it is necessary to return 190 million funds. Pure income of the producer - 690 million rubles ... live money for two months of rental. And now it becomes obvious the reason for the “large state -owners” to clean the film location of the large Russian release - economic interest and no policy.

If we look at the lower part of the list, then the question will arise - how did these projects receive state support, what was the examination of these, for the most part, helpless projects? And then another, monstrous problem of the entire budget financing system in our country comes to the surface.

The system does not allow distributing funds in a reasonable way.

It doesn’t matter what: to support production, to subsidize cinemas in small cities, for the construction of roads and for the purchase of tomographs. It is impossible to distribute the money only to worthy projects that certainly satisfy certain criteria, with any result, it is necessary to distribute the entire amount allocated by the budget (!) - regardless of what quality projects are in the lower part of any rating. Hence the ineffective spending of budget funds, and the generation of negativity in society to any distribution of state funds, primarily evaluated by such a lower part of the ratings - there are the most egregious examples of the ineffectiveness of state support.

It is clear that the decision on publication did not arise from a “good life”-more and more often the question of the transparency and effectiveness of financial state support is raised in society, and in the future it will depend on the activity of society in the future whether we can ultimately get a more or less effective system of state financial support of the film industry.