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Some interesting things from MosFilm CEO Karen Shakhnazarov interview

He advised to establish some analogue of USSR State Cinematography (StateCinema), a Single Cinematography Center. This structure would be the only authority to invest movies. Now we have Russian ministry of culture (MinCult) and Cinematography Fund – “it is know-how without any analogue in the world”.

The Single Cinematography Center (SCC) should be independent even within the Mincult’s framework. StateCinema was a committee but actually have had ministerial authority. SCC should have similar authority, but in addition it would handle other industry issues. First of all it could find out why Russian cinema industry could not get investments, it also could handle the issue with economic efficiency in industry. It could develop single policy in order to resolve problems, to find solutions and handle different issues. “Nobody in Russia, in national scale, deals with technologies. I don’t mean the state must fund it, but it is very important to understand what and how to develop. Technically there is nothing produced for cinema industry in Russia. In a case if sanctions are introduced, everything would stop, including television. Everything works with imported equipment. In soviet times industry produced a lot of things for cinema – almost everything and with a good quality. Some positions were not better in comparison with imported positions, but there were positions much better then imported positions. But today there is absolutely nothing. We don’t produce even stands.”

He also expressed his opinion about state money for movie production. He believes there is control over money spending, but the money is eating away. There should be organisation which would determine how to invest and how to develop a system making money. He also believes the access to content in internet should be chargeable. Everything what is free of charge is not good. “But we have free content. We are the first who has created free channel on YouTube and our own free online cinema. But we make money on advertisement there. We always hear that soviet cinema belongs to all. No, it is not so. I can say so, I am a part of soviet cinema. There is not so many directors, like I am, remain. Why soviet movies should belong to all? In soviet time studio received bank loan for film. But studio had to pay this bank loan back. So, there was market logic. Therefore it is wrong to assert that soviet cinema belongs to all. Certainly movies in internet must be paid, it is normal.”