Last month, a quarter of movie theaters in Russia were closed. Alexey Voronkov, managing partner of the C5 cinema network, spoke about this at a meeting of the heads of cinema chains with Boris Titov, the presidential commissioner responsible for the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs. Voronkov’s words leads to Film Distributor’s Newsletter.
According to a C5 representative, the working capital of theaters fell more than 40% in March. In April, a decrease of 80% is expected, in May – 92%. Voronkov also notes that we can expect staff cuts and the closure of all cinemas (rather than closing or freezing single theaters) in May. According to his calculations, by the end of 2022, the cinema network will face a total loss of at least 11.1 billion rubles.
According to the Film Distributor Bulletin, attendees found the support measures unsuccessful. According to them, the redirection to the content of India, China, Korea and Latin America will take a long time and will not be popular, and the release of a new big Russian movie that will be interesting to the mass audience will take at least some time. year. Last week, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin confirmed that an increased amount of over 11.5 billion rubles will be allocated from the budget for the production of Russian films this year.
As the attendees of the meeting noted, the re-release of Russian films in March brought only 6% of the total box office.
Nevertheless, now this is one of the main strategies: soon to the list of tapes returning to the big screens, Vladimir Menshov’s Love and Pigeons, as well as The Last Hero trilogy, will be added. The latter is now chartered by Central Partnership. It is not mentioned in the press release and promotional messages that this is an original Russian project of the departed Disney studio.
In terms of the box office, March 2022 was the weakest year in the last five years for cinemas. Compared to February, the box office fell by 28% and amounted to 2,160 billion rubles, informs “BK”. With March 2021, the difference is 45%.
Previously, the Cinema Owners Association requested support from the state in the amount of 4.2 billion rubles. Now, online cinemas have also joined the requests for help. In particular, the Internet Video Association (among its members, for example, ivi, Okko, Amediateka and Start) suggested Reduce VAT on movies and TV shows from 20% to 10%, and adopt an anti-piracy law that allows you to remove links to illegally placed content from search results out of court. The bill was submitted to the State Duma last year.
Meanwhile, studio A24 announced the end of the screening of its films in Russia (its projects include Moonlight by Barry Jenkins, The Lighthouse and The Witch by Robert Eggers, Reincarnation and Solstice by Ari Astaire and other popular films). The only exception was the action movie “Everything Everywhere and at the Same Time”, which the Russian company “Volga” was able to release on April 7. Apparently, because he bought the rights to the tape before February 24. The picture collected 26.4 million rubles at the box office, which is the best indicator for A24 in Russia.
At the same time, Hollywood hopes to return to the Russian market in the near future, according to sources from Film Distributor Bulletin.
In early March, there were rumors that major studios were considering a comeback scenario for May. Now, according to the newspaper, that scenario is considered “great” – and one of the leading names is considering the possibility of restarting the lease in July. However, it all depends on when hostilities in Ukraine will end: without it, the UK writes, “it is meaningless to talk about the resumption of the activity of American studios in Russia.”
Regardless of Hollywood’s plans in Moscow, they gathered to screen Matt Reeves’ Batman movie. Kinokomiks, which will be released in the Russian Federation on March 3, became the first painting removed from distribution in Russia after February 24. On April 21, in one of the capital’s clubs, they plan to hold the “all-Russian premiere” of the tape, which a few days ago will appear on the streaming service HBO Max and, accordingly, will also be on pirated sources. . Tickets for the event, if it takes place, will be sold on the day of the show for between 300 and 500 rubles. Before leaving the market, Warner Bros. Universal, which distributes its films. In Russia, however, he did not comment on this initiative. At the end of March, the former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky was already dealing with “who needs these copyrights.”
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On April 11, Spotify music streaming became unavailable in Russia. This decision was taken because of the new “fake law”: “Unfortunately, the recent law further restricts access to information.”
The law does indeed apply to podcasts, which is a priority for Spotify’s development: on April 13, it was known that the Yandex.Music service had removed the podcast of the BBC Russian service at the request of Roskomnadzor “What was that? ”, they described the events in Ukraine.
Spotify now offers users with Russian accounts the ability to change the region in settings. Apparently, it will be possible to use the platform in the same way as before its official launch in the country: once every two weeks, go to the profile using a VPN. It will be necessary to connect to the server of the country to which the account will be “transferred”. At the same time, Spotify notes that support on the site continues to work.
Outline Electronic Music Festival has been postponed to July 2023. “Transfer is a necessary precaution. The organizers act, above all, in the interests of the audience and the artists.”
Initially, Outline was supposed to take place on the territory of an unfinished Soviet health complex for workers in the energy industry, 110 km from Moscow, on July 14-18. The festival was organized by the associations Arma, Stereotactic and Sila Sveta.
At the same time, another crazy festival – Signal – will still be held this summer about the organizers. said Newspaper.Ru.
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Exhibits from the Hermitage, Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin and other museums, previously detained by Finnish customs officers, returned to Russia after participating in foreign exhibitions. This happened shortly after the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs authorized the return of these artifacts to Russia, and also legal changes came into force allowing EU countries under sanctions to allow for export and “other transfers of officially included cultural property”. cultural cooperation” to Russia.
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Russian book publishers, who have faced difficulties for the past month and a half, have launched the “Books Left” campaign on the Bookmate subscription service to read books. Within the scope of the marathon, 60 books “in harmony with the present” were made available for free. The campaign will run until June 1st.
Bookmate has noted that many publishers are now “losing their main channels of communication with their readers”, so the service will now also talk about “how publishers live today and what is happening in the book industry” and provide a platform for industry representatives. . So, in the Gorodets publishing house, the service was told that Scandinavian, Italian and French publishing houses and agencies do not inform them about the rupture in relations: “We even received letters expressing understanding and sympathy for us as publishers, in general, undeserved suffering in this situation. Now it is more important than ever to continue publishing books and everyone understands this. They are books that are called upon to preserve cultural bonds and understanding between people, especially in difficult times.”
Source: Gazeta
Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.