Karen Shakhnazarov: "An ideal relationship is when no one asks about nationality"

This year marks 95 years since the foundation of Mosfilm. Director of the Mosfilm film concern Karen Shakhnazarov summed up the results of anniversary year of the country's main film studio at a special multimedia conference. The outgoing year was a breakthrough in terms of modernization and construction of new facilities. The plans include construction of modern cinema and concert complex and a new pavilion that has no analogues in Russia. After the conference, Karen Shakhnazarov answered questions of Vestnik Kavkaza.

- How would you rate the current level of Mosfilm?

- Mosfilm does not receive any state subsidies, it operates only through those funds that it earns and invests in production itself, and modernizes the studios. When I became the director of Mosfilm, it was in a state of complete collapse. Most of the buildings were just bare walls, there were no technologies. Over the years, we have practically re-created this film studio. Today it's a first-class studio that is not inferior to anyone in the world. We are on par with Warner Brothers. I think this is a good result.

- Russia is a multinational country. Does Mosfilm contribute to the development of interethnic relations?

- I am m this contribution. Mosfilm has traditionally been a multinational studio. People of different nationalities worked and work for us, Russians with different ethnic backgrounds. There's no national issue in film production. An ideal relationship is when people don’t even think about nationality. In this sense, we have an ideal relationship.

- Do you keep in touch with movie studios in the countries of the former Soviet Union?

- Almost all studios of the former USSR disappeared. Only those that were supported by the state were preserved - Kazakhfilm, Minsk Film Studio. I don’t know anything about the fate of the Odessa film studio, the Dovzhenko film studio. In Armenia, a film studio makes one or two pictures a year. I can’t say anything about Azerbaijan, for well-known reasons, I can't go there anymore, although my father is from Baku.