Mikhail Mishustin: “We are faced with a daunting task of improving the quality of domestic cinema and aligning it with traditional spiritual and moral values. At the same time, it must appeal to the audiences, resonate with their hearts, and remain relevant, engaging, and creative.”
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Strategic session on expanding the domestic cinema industry
Good afternoon, colleagues.
We will use this strategic session to discuss the Russian cinema industry and the kind of additional steps we need to take in order to have more Russian-made films and, just as importantly, to ensure they meet the demands of the day and audience expectations.
The Soviet Union broke up, and Western films flooded the Russian market, quickly ousting domestic films from the scene. However, government support was here to reverse the situation. In 2019, the share of the Russian films in cinemas stood at nearly 30 percent, which allowed the market to quickly recover from losses caused by major international producers leaving Russia a couple of years before that. A year later, the domestic film box office revenue tripled.
The share of Russian films in distribution continues to grow. According to the President, this growth is “important not only for this engaging and creative industry, but for the content as well,” which is what things really are, because only Russian filmmakers and other culture figures can do an authentic job covering our nation’s history, cultural identity, traditions, and values. Eighty percent of films in the Russian cinemas showcasing high-quality work by our directors, actors, writers, and cameramen are domestically produced.
The Government provides substantial support to the industry. At the President’s instruction, the Ministry of Culture has provided funding to produce over 1,700 films of diverse genres over the past six years. An additional 300 films were funded by the Cinema Fund, and these films account for the bulk of the domestic box office revenue. Last year alone, about 57.5 million cinema goers went to the cinemas to watch publicly-funded films.
Much has been done to make cinema more accessible to the public. For example, cinemas are equipped with the latest technology in smaller towns with populations under 500,000. Since 2015, over 1,300 cinemas across 83 regions have been upgraded. This year, equipment will be supplied to an additional 91 cinemas, including 10 in the new regions. People will have the chance to experience creative works on the big screen. The Pushkin Card project helps draw younger audiences to watch Russian films.
Colleagues,
Tatyana Golikova at a strategic session on expanding the domestic cinema industry
The number of new releases or box office revenue is not what’s behind the success of the Russian cinema, be it theatrical releases or television series. Cinema has a much broader role to play which is not limited to entertainment. Good cinema lets viewers learn something new and introduces them to culture, history, and art. It provokes thought and inspires empathy, broadens perspectives and plays a crucial role in shaping younger generations.
We are faced with a daunting task of improving the quality of domestic cinema and aligning it with traditional spiritual and moral values. At the same time, it must appeal to the audiences, resonate with their hearts, and remain relevant, engaging, and creative. We should continue creating proper environment for the industry to be able to improve its economic performance, since this aspect is essential if we want our filmmakers to remain successfully engaged in their creative activities.
