On May 16th the Cannes Cinema Market begins its work parallel to the 65th Cannes Cinema Festival. The united stand of Russian cinema, which was presented in Berlin for the first time in February 2012, will gather Russian distribution companies. Russian cinema producers and distributors discussed in Moscow whether foreign interest in Russian cinema is high, how to promote its presence in international distribution and how cooperation in the cinema sphere promotes Russian projects.
Elena Romanova, Head of the International Department, Cinema Fund
Russia will be represented in the program by the Sergei Loznitsa film “In the Fog”. We are always glad when Russia is widely represented, especially at this very respected event the Cannes festival. We will support this film, but it will not be the only Russian film. The film of ROK studio, Kira Saksaganskaya’s “I Will Be Near” is now also being considered. Maybe it will get into “Uncertain Regard”.
As for the activity of the fund, we were indeed inspired by the practice of the Berlin film market. The united stand proved to be efficient. Russia was well-represented and, very importantly, many good deals with distributers were concluded. Russia's united stand in Cannes will bring together “Bazelev”, “Star Pictures”, “Russian World Vision”, “Wizard Animation”. “Riki Group” and “Orthodox Encyclopedia”. In general, these are the most active companies that provide films for international distribution. We are not limited only to those companies that already have product to sell, but open to all companies that want to present their films. So, with some printed materials and videos, we will talk about “Gulfstream Under the Iceberg” by “Horosho Productions”. “Shapito Show”, the winner of the last year’s Moscow Film Festival, will also be presented, and we will try to help in its realization. Then there will be “Viy” and “I Will Be Near”. Except from the general stand with the Russian films, there will also be many presentations talking about the new activity of the fund in the international direction and the plans for development.
Speaking about the activity of the Fund and the new directions that we are trying to develop, apart from the support for Russian films in Russia, we also actively develop the international distribution of Russian films. This might even include financial support from distributors that have already bought Russian films and plan to show them. Therefore the presentation in Cannes is very logical, we need some platform to present Russian films. We have been talking about it for a long time, there were some successful attempts to screen Russian films at the Moscow Film Festival and the “Tomorrow” festival. But finally all the efforts came together and we will have a good presentation of the latest works from Russia and not only because the CIS countries will also be there, since Russia and post-Soviet space are still perceived together in the international market.
Leonid Vereshagin, General producer of the Moscow Film Festival
As for the Moscow business forum at Moscow Film Festival, we have been working together with the Fund for three years already and before that we were organizing business forums at Moscow Film Festivals. I think that it is very important for the Moscow Film Festival, because there are only 13 festivals of this kind in the world, as I keep saying. They have their categories. At some point it was category A. Now there is a special classification according to the length, the quantity of participants and countries, activity against piracy, languages, etc. These film festivals took place only in countries with a developed film infrastructure. Therefore the existence of the business forum is one of the most important elements for the Moscow Film Festival. This year we will have a business forum in June 25-27. I will not reveal all the secrets, but will say that it will mostly be a forum of co-productions with products that are traditionally very successful. This is very important for a festival where many projects and their authors find producers both from Russia and abroad. This year the focus will be on the American and Canadian industries. There will be some round tables for the distributors and education. Now everybody's talking about improvement of the cinema education system, and we will have this seminar in our business-forum. There will be an education program, it will be wider, there will be several locations, but the main one will be Moscow Business Square.
Evgeny Gindinis, producer
For several years on the basis of the “Tomorrow” film festival and the “Media International” program, we were promoting Russian films that were still in the production stage, it was a small platform for festival distributors and selectors for the new Russian projects. On the basis of this new platform that has existed for three years already, we are developing a new format that is relatively famous in the world, because this is how “Unifrand” works, for instance, when it organizes the annual January presentations of French films for the distributors in Paris. In this analogy we developed a project that will be called “Red Square Screenings” that will be meant for all the participants for the international film industry, distributors, selectors, journalists to promote Russian film projects. It will include films, animation, documentaries, to help the producers that want their projects to appear outside Russia. It will allow for more of these projects. This work includes several important elements. First of all, we understand that all the films we show should be formatted in a certain way. This includes some technical specifications, good translations and availability in several technical regimes. These should be films for cinemas, video-libraries and online platforms, that will be a part of this film market. All this will take place for five days in GUM, with the understanding that cinema is not just a product, it is a part of our national culture, and when promoting these films we promote our country. We should offer to the people we invite the maximum comfortable and positive image of the country and the movies. The combination of GUM, Red Square, October when it is not yet cold in Moscow is a unique offer against the competitive background of the other film markets in the second part of the year. We understand that the task is very ambitious, but we understand that our offer should be unique to stimulate effective promotion of our films. Russian cinema was not in demand for a long time and also not commercialized enough from the point of view of rights. The selling of rights and the commercial screening of our films is our main task. And we understand that we need to put in a lot of financial and organizational effort to get results.
