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26.06.07
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Filming Russia
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By Mumin Shakirov
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Domestic Directors Challenged by Self-Censorship and History
Much has been said about the growth of the domestic film industry in Russia. According to Daniil Dondurey, editor-in-chief of Art of Cinema magazine, some 80 to 90 domestic films are released in Russia annually, including those produced for television. Many of these are the result of the involvement of the Federal Agency of Culture and Cinematography, which is generous in supplying new projects with grant money. Federal money does not need be returned, so box office take is largely irrelevant and producers bear minimal risk. Only five or six Russian films per year are actually profitable. So far in 2007, only two films have achieved box office success: Zhara (The Heat) and Lyubov-Morkov (Love-Carrot). Five or six additional films recovered their costs via distribution, TV runs and DVD sales.
The reason for this situation, and also as a result of it, is that there is no real Russian film industry. There is a deficit of quality screenplays, talented directors, professional producers and, no less importantly, people working in the second tier of film production: makeup artists, painters, set designers and assistant directors. The distributors and owners of movie theaters appear to be the only people actually making money, having increased the number of movie theaters from 78 in 2000 to more than 1,500 today. According to the magazine Film Business Today, the total box office income in Russia in 2006 was $412 million, but strange as it sounds, a quarter of this income was brought in by only four films: Dnevnoy Dozor (Day Watch), Svolochi (Scum), Piter FM, and Bumer 2 (Boomer 2).
There are almost no major production companies in Russia that could compare with such Hollywood monsters as the Walt Disney Company, Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures or Universal Studios. Quite often in Russia, the director and producer are part of the same entity and a single company puts a single film together; there are hundreds of such “one-hit wonder” companies. A few separate studios produce three to four films per year, but no more than that. Today there are no companies like the Soviet-era Mosfilm, which released up to 80 films annually.
But the film market is a difficult environment for Russian directors and producers since they are competing against foreign blockbusters. “Interest in local productions is unstable,” says director Andrei Konchalovsky. “The reason for this is that modern pictures do not reflect real life.” Additionally, aggressive advertising works only in the first three to four days after the release. The only exceptions are those few films that have accurately guessed the viewers’ expectations.
“Where on the screen is the ordinary village inhabitant or a city worker trying to survive in the new market environment?” wonders Konchalovsky. He tried to make some food for thought with his film Glyanets (Glamour) about a young woman from the regions dreaming of conquering Moscow though a modeling agency, but the critics reacted listlessly to his attempt. Only box office results will tell whether Konchalovsky was able to get through to the viewers.
At the recent Kinotavr film festival in Sochi, a roundtable focused on the inability of Russian writers, directors and producers to make relevant films. “Where are the piercing films about love?” asked critic Dondurey. “Where are the modern Romeo and Juliet, immersed in passion and striving to preserve their feelings in an atmosphere of difficult domestic and social conditions? Where are the schoolchildren on the screen?” But right now there are no easy answers.
Buyer Joel Shapron, who has been coming to Russia to select local films for the past 15 years, was also among the participants in the roundtable. From his point of view, the inchoate middle class, people like his Moscow friends and acquaintances, are almost invisible on film. “My friends don’t drive Zhiguli or Rolls-Royces, but prefer normal cars; they don’t live in communal apartments or in villas, but in ordinary, modern housing. Instead of normal people, I am shown a madman doctor, corrupt policemen, monster oligarchs, drug barons and villainous teenagers. Script writers and directors think that taking things to the extreme will make them interesting,” Shapron said.
What You Can and Can’t Say
Another hot topic among industry analysts and critics at Kinotavr was censorship. Sergei Chilyants, who produced such pictures as Nastroyshik (The Tuner) by Kira Muratova, Bumer (Boomer) by Peter Buslov, and Zhivoi (Alive) by Alexander Veledinsky spoke of self-censorship. “I have a friend, Peter Buslov, who hasn’t worked for over a year. ?e went around, listened to proposals, made selections and finally came to me and said that he read a book called Sankya, written by Zahar Prilepin. And he said, ‘Let’s make a film based on this book.’ I read it and almost went insane. I am not talking about its artistic merits right now. We, gentlemen, have limitations, and let’s not make any illusions as to their absence. Some of my colleagues, people I deeply respect, advise me not to make a film based on Sankya. Moreover, before leaving for the festival, Peter and I spoke sincerely, and he told me, ‘I changed my mind. I don’t want to be beaten by the police, to be stripped of the ability to work and take you along with me.’”
Zahar Prilepin is one of the leaders of a division of the National Bolshevik Party in Nizhny Novgorod. His novel Sankya tells the story of a young man who joins a revolutionary organization, unwillingly arousing parallels with The Other Russia and their “Dissenters’ Marches.”
Critic Kirill Razlogov gave another example of a Russian director who wanted to cinematize the novel Ostrov Krim (The Island of Crimea) by Vasiliy Aksyonov, but couldn’t find financing for the project since businessmen are trying to figure out what the Kremlin will think of this idea. The book envisions Crimea as a kind of Russian Hong Kong, a part of Russia that didn’t become Communist.
But Daniil Dondurey is an optimist, certain that almost everything is possible in film. “The most important thing is for films to be full of talented people and seem modern. Money will be given, airtime provided and the road to the big screen is always open for relevant films. The worst enemy of directors and producers is fear and self-censorship,” says Dondurey. “You’ll see that the scariest movie of the year, Gruz 200 (Cargo 200), will certainly be shown on Channel One.”
In an attempt to test Dondurey’s theory, I quizzed a few directors on the possibility of making a movie called Preemnik (The Successor), which would be about Vladimir Putin ascending to the Kremlin throne in 2000. But there were no volunteers to make such a movie. Director Tigran Keosayan, who made the film Zayats nad Bezdnoy (A Rabbit Above an Abyss) about Brezhnev’s adventures, said, “I made a film about the mythological personage of Brezhnev. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is yet to become a mythological personage and nobody knows whether he ever will. A mythological personage has to have bright aspects, and even if there are jokes about President Putin, they are very rough and there are very few. I find it largely uninteresting to make a film about the current president.”
Undoubtedly, Americans would already have made a dozen films on such a topic. In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, many films were made about Nixon, and two Washington Post journalists became media superstars. Documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky was more honest in his response: “No, I am not going to make such a film because I want to live in this country and I want my children to live here. When the Soviet Union still existed, I didn’t go out to the city square among the seven people who protested the Soviet army’s incursion into Czechoslovakia. I quietly listened to Voice of America underneath my pillow. That was all I was capable of then, and it’s all I am capable of now.”
Producer Igor Tolstunov, who released such films as Voditel dlya Very (A Driver for Vera) and Vor (The Thief) didn’t dodge an answer, but attempted to examine the project from an economic point of view. In his opinion, such a movie will not be very profitable because it has no target audience.
Is Russia Uninteresting?
But while censorship could be the answer for why it is unlikely that anyone in Russia would make a movie about the life of Mikhail Khodorkhovsky or the Nord-Ost siege, it cannot completely explain why Russian film producers avoid the history of their own country.
Paradoxically, not one film has been made about the events of August 1991, although the Soviet Union crumbled after the putsch. And there is a dearth of films on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which 15,000 soldiers died and some 60,000 were wounded over a 10 year period. The one film made on the subject, Devyataya Rota (The 9th Company) was a huge hit. In comparison, Americans have made hundreds of films on Vietnam and continue covering this topic from all angles. There are a few motion pictures about Chechnya, but, in the words of Putin, it’s hard to seriously comprehend this civil war.
But likewise there have been no films about Russia’s heroes, such as cosmonauts Yury Gagarin or Valentina Tereshokva. “This subject is flawless from the censorship point of view and could become global,” says Dondurey, “One could make billions of dollars on a marketing campaign advertising a brand such as Gagarin.” Indeed, American filmmakers have made a great deal of money off hundreds of films featuring astronauts and NASA. Nor are there any films about Russia’s great scientists or artists like Andrei Sakharov, Mark Bernes or Leonid Utyosov.
The answer as to why these topics are avoided may be that in film, as in life, there needs to be some civil responsibility and there are very few people in Russia ready and willing to defend their rights and freedoms. For filmmakers, making movies that are relevant to ordinary life is the sign of taking a stand for civic responsibility. It is also necessary to acknowledge the weak professional training programs for directors. Only a few directors and producers are able to tell a story using modern cinematic language. Only a dozen artists in Russia know how to work with sound, images and actors to competently create the scene and build the supporting story using modern technology and the art of montage. Almost the entire field of Russian independent, auteur cinema is made inexpressively, despite quality content.
Many experts see the only salvation of Russia’s domestic film industry in the enlargement of the studios. In the opinion of specialists like Sergei Chliyanets, producers need to mitigate their ambitions and join large structures, although this will necessarily require ceding some control – and credit – to more experienced professionals. The appearance of major studios in Russia may not be far off since such serious businessmen as Norilsk Nickel’s Vladimir Potanin and Vladimir Yevtushenko, head of AFK System, are getting involved in filmmaking. Entrepreneur Alexander Mamut is also aiming to become a movie mogul. Maybe those who have interest in cinema combined with extreme wealth are capable of reviving Russia’s film industry to the point that it can take on Hollywood.
Mumin Shakirov is a Moscow-based film director and reviewer. |
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