One of the first decisions made by the new directorate of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation was involving the cinema in interethnic relations. Grigori Ivliyev, the Deputy Minister of Culture, made a declaration about this in an interview to Izvestiya; Mikhail Markelov, the member of the Duma Committee on Ethnic Affairs, supported this initiative.
According to the declarations of the officials, the main task will be to emphasize a favorable image of Caucasian peoples in Russian cinema.
Figuratively, we need "Mimino-2" or "Kidnapping, Caucasian Style" in the XXIth century. On the one hand, the idea is great. Indeed, taking into consideration the information provided by the main sources, cinema remains one of the most important arts for our young people, or, more exactly, the only branch of art they perceive. Many of the people who were born after the break-up of the USSR don't get any information about interethnic relations from any sources, except multiplexes and the internet.
I suppose it is not necessary to remind you what they search for on the Internet, in particular on certain message boards. I would like to emphasize once again that this idea is great; moreover, Fedor Bondarchuk has already announced that he is ready to film a comedy in Gaidai's manner in order to support the ambitious project "Tourism Clusters in the North Caucasus". The only worrying thing is that all state orders concerning the cinema, in particular orders on inflammatory patriotic subjects, have failed up to now.
Maybe the movie "1612" is the exception to this deplorable rule, but this strange rule extends to other movies: it is a known fact that artists' inspiration disappears when an additional state order appears. In the absence of a new Gaidai, everybody is worried about the quality of this project. You can't find actors like Vakhtang Kikabidze or Frunzik Mkrtchyan in our cinema industry nowadays for love nor money.
On the other hand, the subject of the favorable image of both the Caucasians and other peoples of our country is so important that the necessity of correcting this image seems to be quite obvious and even a bit late. Nevertheless, the Duma deputies comment on this subject more carefully.
For instance, Mikhail Markelov said: "A while ago we had a lot of wonderful movies, such as "Mimino" or "Kidnapping, Caucasian Style"; after their release we didn't need to create any new image of Caucasians. We need to film new modern movies and involve the young in these projects".
Indeed, the most rational solution would be to film a lot of good movies and to write a lot of good books. Not everybody can manage to do this, and it is not possible in all conditions; that's why, speaking bureaucratic language, we should concentrate on our strategic goals. Let's wait for the release of a new amusing comedy about the Resorts of the North Caucasus, hoping for a revival of the Soviet tradition in this genre and the harmonization of interethnic relations which has become a pain in the neck of Russian society recently.
