Change the finale or change yourself?

Why producers refuse to cooperate with Andrei Zvyagintsev

Andrei Zvyagintsev, the owner of two nominations for Oscar, Cannes awards, the Golden Leo) was in a difficult situation.

Until recently, his cinema, noted by his infancy and uncompromising, annoyed the ex-minister of Medinsky’s culture, who called the director of the Russophobic, but, nevertheless, independent Russian producers and investors collaborated with Zvyagintsev. And very successfully, as evidenced by a whole bouquet of awards at world festivals of the first magnitude.

However, in 2018, his film was preserved at the pre -production stage about the Second World War and the besieged Leningrad. Alexander Rodnyansky (the producer of Zvyagintsev’s paintings “Nelyubov”, “Leviathan”, “Elena”) left the project. Apparently, problems arose due to the complexity and high cost of the film.

There was a new alliance with the producer of Hype Film Ilya Stuart (Summer, Pupil).

Their new project with the working name “The confrontation of Jupiter” is a dramatic story of a rich Russian who owns a house at the Mediterranean Sea, which falls into terrible, insurmountable circumstances. As usual in Zvyagintsev, history develops in two layers of reality and metaphysical space, and conflict falls into pain points.

After they had already chosen places for filming (a very expensive villa was needed), it became known that the Zvyagintsev union with Stuart broke up. The producer refused to comment. Kinocritic Andrei Plakhov is convinced that the matter is in self -censorship. In the article “In -Law Relations” he writes: “An atmosphere is formed in which the prohibition mechanism is automatically triggered, at the level of self -censorship, decomposing the consciousness of producers, investors and the filmmakers themselves.”

At the same time, the expert council of the Roman Abramovich Foundation “Kinopraim” examined this project and appreciated it very highly (almost unanimously). The fund did not refuse to financing it.

COMMENT

Anton Malyshev, Executive Director of the Kinopraim Foundation

-“Kinopraim” was created to help investors support high-quality projects that can at least return investments to some extent. This is not a charitable box office, but a profile institution for investing in a modern demanded movie. The budget of the film is 700 million rubles. Similar budgets can be in commercial cinema, blockbusters, such as “attraction” or “upward movement”. For art house, this is an excessively large amount. We are not concerned about the content of the film, I do not see anything seditious in it, but its economy.

Kinopraim can participate in financing the picture up to one hundred million rubles. But we must guarantee investors that there is an opportunity to return the money, that there is a missing part of the budget. When changing or clarifying the costs confirmed by the participation of Western investors, the presence of a producer from the Russian side, we can return to the consideration of the project Andrei Zvyagintsev.

By the way, one of the first films supported by Kinopraim was Klima Shipenko’s “text” - a topical social statement about our society. The film was denied state financing. After the release, the picture of Shipenko not only returned the investment, but made good fees, had an excellent “sundress” and was awarded three awards on the “Golden Orel”, including the title “Best Film”.

But Andrei Zvyagintsev believes that the reason for the project stopping after eight months of work on him is the sudden offer of the producer to change the final:

“In March, we started with the project, in July there was already the first draft, the producer supported in every way. And only in November, a proposal arose to change the final. How can I change the finale? This is the same as betraying your plan. I refused. And then Ilya Stuart refused the project. ”

Today, the director and his associates continue to look for investors and producers.