— Over the past year and a half, significant changes have occurred in the creative field in which you are most immersed. Can you tell us how you see them and what we have come to today?
— Our main conclusion is that creative resources can be drawn from within the country. Over the past year and a half, the creative market has had a unique opportunity to create its own unique, national product and expand into niches vacated by the departure of Western companies. And today, we can safely say that the largest players are optimizing their resources, expanding their footprint, many of them have managed to increase their target audience and introduce new products created within the country.
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A few examples: The Russian online cinema market grew by 5% at the end of 2022, reaching 63.3 billion rubles, compared to 60.3 billion rubles in 2021. 11 of the 20 most successful Russian films were produced in Russia. Russian animators have successfully exploited the loss of American family content. GC’s cartoon “Riki” – “Finnik”, which earned 443 million rubles, became not only the most successful animation project of 2022, but also a record holder among original cartoons in the last 10 years. The box office of Russian films in the first 5 months of 2023 reached 16.7 billion rubles, exceeding the annual figures of the last 8 years.
Another example is the book trade. For more than a year, a significant part of foreign authors has abandoned cooperation with Russia, but this has not stopped the domestic industry: in 2022, book publishing in the country increased by 3 million copies compared to 2021, exceeding 392 million copies. This is the data of the Russian Book Chamber. Today, bookmakers are looking for new niches, authors and, finally, look inside the country: they begin to invest in film adaptations of Russian books.
— Are you the initiator, chairman of the Russian Creative Awards, the National Award in the field of creative industries? Why is it important for creators and what does it provide?
— Our award is, as originally intended, a showcase of the best work done in the country’s creative market. For candidates, this is recognition from the professional community, colleagues, competitors and top experts; This is an additional incentive to move forward. For the jury, this is the most detailed “map” of the creative market of our country: an opportunity to evaluate and celebrate the best, to show the whole country creative heroes, successful projects, enterprises and even entire regions. The award is a great opportunity for all of us to see what wonderful and groundbreaking things are being done in our country in the creative field. And finally, the Awards ceremony is always a unique creative product in itself: last year it was an opera about the creative industries. What happens in this is still a surprise!
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We will give the award for the 3rd time, the application process continues, all interested candidates can submit their projects to the competition. Web site awards.
The format of the Russian Creative Awards has changed this year. If we started our projects – Russian Creative Week forums and Russian Creative Awards – with the aim of popularizing the topic of creative industries, creative economy, attracting attention and explaining what it is, now our task is to improve the quality of creative industries. creative product and make it recognizable and in demand in Russia and abroad. Therefore, in addition to collecting applications on the website, it was decided to give the jury the right to independently nominate projects.
Here we were guided by a simple idea: top representatives of the creative industries, masters, experts, those who know the creative markets best, strong players and creative entrepreneurs who can evaluate everything done throughout the year. We will listen to professionals whose opinions truly carry weight. Meetings will be held for the jury where they will not only select candidates from the lists, but also prove to each other who really deserves to win the award this year.
— Who was in the expert jury and in which categories will the awards be given this year?
— The jury consists of 50 experts from creative industries. Among them are the chief architect of Moscow Sergei Kuznetsov, general director of the National Media Group Svetlana Balanova, deputy general director of VGTRK Anton Zlatopolsky, general director of Gazprom-Media Holding Alexander Zharov, chairman of the board of directors of the Soyuzmultfilm film studio. Yuliana Slashcheva, director of the Multimedia Art Museum” Olga Sviblova, Russian writer, playwright, screenwriter Alexander Tsypkin and others.
Projects are accepted in 10 categories: “Social project”, “Educational project”, “New forms”, “Cultural code”, “Territory development project”, “Children’s project”, “Region of the Year”, “Creative activity”, “Person of the Year” ”, “Digital Project”.
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Our nominating approach is cross-sectoral. For example, representatives from different fields can apply to the “Children’s Project” category: cinema, music, festivals, books, exhibitions. The most important thing here is that they work with children’s audiences.
— Tell us in more detail how projects will be evaluated by experts. What would you recommend candidates to pay attention to during project delivery?
— Project evaluation will be carried out in two stages. The jury has a very busy job ahead of them. The first stage is the meetings of the groups regarding the candidacies, where the candidates are discussed and the candidate selection is made. The outcome of each meeting is a shortlist for nomination. The second stage is the general vote of the jury and the determination of the winners, whose results, according to its results, will receive our “seed” on December 1 in the Moscow Zaryadye Concert Hall (author’s note: prize, one seed).
On the award’s website you can read the document “Regulations on the Russian National Prize in the Field of Creative Industries”, which describes in detail the jury rules, criteria for evaluating projects, nominations and submission rules.
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Among the evaluation criteria that I recommend you pay attention to: the importance of the project for the development of the creative sector, uniqueness, new creative approaches and technologies in practice, practical results revealed by the project.
The bonus bar is high, this is the constant we build on every year. We also see the incentive the winners receive, as the awarded projects continue to evolve and reach new heights.
Source: Gazeta
Ben Stock is a business analyst and writer for “Social Bites”. He offers insightful articles on the latest business news and developments, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the business world.