What's wrong with Russian film distribution

In February 2016, the Ministry of Culture received Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated February 27, 2016 No. 143 "On Approval of the Rules for Issuance, Refusal to Issue and Revocation of a Film License and the Rules for Maintaining the State Register of Films" from the government, the right to regulate the release schedule of films. The new rules indicate that the Ministry of Culture may refuse to issue a rental certificate (a document required for the release of a film in cinemas) if another equivalent picture claims for the same date.

That is, when two cartoons or action films fall on one day at once, the Ministry of Culture has the right to independently decide which of them to give preference, and first acquaint the viewer with a better quality movie. But the system worked differently: the green light is increasingly given to patriotic films filmed in Russia, even when it harms distributors and viewers.

The loudest scandals around the decisions of the Ministry of Culture began in 2018. The life hacker recalls them and understands why a measure designed to develop the viewer's taste harms and narrows our view.

Ministry of Culture against "offensive cinema"

In January 2018, the media talked a lot about censorship. Then the Ministry of Culture revoked the distribution certificate from the comedy Death of Stalin, which was distributed by the independent company Volga.

The withdrawal of the certificate caused a wide public outcry, because the film was banned just two days before its release. The Ministry of Culture revoked the distribution certificate of the film "Death of Stalin". According to official statements, the film found the commentary of the head of the Ministry of Culture of Russia Vladimir Medinsky in connection with the withdrawal of the rental certificate for the film "Death of Stalin" "an insulting mockery of the entire Soviet past."

“Death of Stalin” is indeed ambiguous, but earlier the Ministry of Culture had already checked it and did not reveal Medinsky about a possible ban on “Death of Stalin”: we have no violations of freedom of speech. In addition, in parallel with this, the original comic "Death of Stalin", on which the film is based, went on sale in Russia without any problems. This means that it was not only a matter of offending the feelings of the people. Moreover, this situation was not the first for the Russian film distribution.

Upward Movement Against Paddington

It all started earlier - with the release of the sports drama "Moving Up", created with the support of the "Cinema Fund" and the TV channel "Russia-1". The picture was provided with unprecedented information support and was given almost the entire New Year rental for the sessions.

"Moving Up" hit theaters on December 28, 2017, and in fact remained the only major release for the entire New Year's Eve. Without competition, the picture collected "Moving Up": the box office, about the film more than 1.5 billion rubles.

But the main thing happened later. The Ministry of Culture decided to further increase the income of "Moving Up", and at the same time to support "The Adventures of Paddington - 2" was not allowed to compete with Russian cinema, the domestic film "Skif", which was released on January 18. This required the release of The Adventures of Paddington 2 to be removed from the same day, since the story of the bear attracted viewers much more.

As a result, the day before the start of the rental, the same Volga company, which produces Paddington in Russia, issued a certificate for February 1 without intelligible explanations. At first glance, this is not a big deal: people don't care when to watch the sequel to their favorite movie. But the rental system is much more complicated. Release dates are selected in several months, or even a year, so that the films do not compete with each other and allow cinemas to earn money and distributors to recoup their costs.

Shot from "The Adventures of Paddington - 2"

The Paddington Adventures shift meant that the releases scheduled for February 1 would also shift. And if Western films still withstood the competition, then the Russian film "Selfie" with Konstantin Khabensky would probably have failed: it came out just between the so-seen "The Maze Runner" and "50 Shades of Freedom". And on February 14, another Russian film "Ice" started, so there was simply no room for "Selfie".

Saved only by the loud reaction of the media. After the hype, "The Adventures of Paddington II" came out just two days later than the scheduled date of January 20. However, the wide publicity did not help everyone.

Sobibor vs. Avengers

In the spring of 2018, the Ministry of Culture came up with another initiative to support Russian cinema: to cancel the screening of all Western films in cinemas for the May holidays. For this, the release of the most anticipated crossover of the year "Avengers: War of Infinity" was proposed to be postponed from May 3 to May 11.

Of course, the distributors responded with a wave of negativity: long weekends always bring big profits. Ticket prices are higher these days and the halls are full. As a result, they chose a compromise option: all the releases remained in their places, but on May 9 cinemas played only Russian films.

Officially, of course, they talked about the spirit of patriotism on Victory Day. But in fact, the whole initiative was aimed at supporting the release of the film "Sobibor", created by Medinsky, told about the work on the idea of the film "Sobibor" based on the story of Medinsky himself.

This really allowed Sobibor to slightly increase its fees. But on the whole, according to the Unified Federal Automated Information System for information about screenings of films in the cinema halls of the UAIS website, the experiment turned out to be a failure: the majority of viewers simply did not go to the cinema. Cinema fees on May 9 turned out to be lower than on weekdays, when "The Avengers" was shown. Citing people's reluctance to go to the cinema on Victory Day also failed: in 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy - 2 on May 9 collected more than the entire Russian distribution on the same day in 2018.

The initiative caused losses to cinemas and inconvenience to viewers. The collection of Russian paintings, though increased, but certainly not at times.

"Sadko" versus "Prince Charming"

On May 24, two cartoons were supposed to start at the box office: the Russian "Sadko" and the American-Canadian "Beautiful Prince". But according to the decision of Cartoon "Prince Charming" will not receive a rental certificate on May 24, the Ministry of Culture, the second moved to the end of June.

From the point of view of the law, everything is fair here. The application for Sadko was submitted earlier, and the Ministry had the right to dilute two equivalent releases. But in this situation, there are several subtleties.

First of all, is it necessary to say that the ill-fated Volga was again the distributor of The Beautiful Prince. Secondly, the release was shifted not by a week or two, but to the middle of summer, when a significant part of the children are already leaving on vacation. And this is the main target audience of cartoons.

And thirdly, it's enough to compare the quality of the animation. Not the brightest and most expensive "Prince Charming" seems much more modern than the domestic "Sadko": here it is as if honest competition is deliberately avoided.

"Crimean Bridge" against "Hunter Keeler"

On November 1, the box office was supposed to start the action movie "Hunter Killer" - a story about how American submariners rescue the Russian president. However, on the day of the release, there was a statement that "Hunter Killer" would not receive a release certificate that the Ministry of Culture had not issued a release certificate for the film.

Formally, the reason for the refusal was the Ministry of Culture explained the situation with the distribution of the film "Hunter Killer" "inadequate quality" of the copy sent by the company. But the department must screen the films in advance, since the approval of the documents takes about two weeks. Why this became known on the day of rental, the Ministry of Culture did not explain.

A still from the film “Crimean Bridge. Made with love"

In any case, the main release on November 1 was Bohemian Rhapsody. But simultaneously with it, five Russian films were released at once, including “Crimean Bridge. Made with love". The start at the box office of a patriotic film at the same time as "Hunter the Killer" probably embarrassed the officials. Therefore, the release of the action movie was postponed for a week.

However, this did not help the "Crimean Bridge" much. Despite the high age rating (18+), "Bohemian Rhapsody" collected about eight times more in the first weekend.

"Policeman from Rublyovka" vs. "Spider-Man"

New Year's holidays also deserve special mention. On December 13, 2018, four top films were released in the cinema at once: "Aquaman", "Bumblebee", "The Grinch" and "Spider-Man: Through the Universes".

It would seem happiness? Not really. First of all, Spider-Man suffered. The cartoon with innovative animation lost its audience: parents with children chose New Year's Grinch, and comic book fans chose Aquaman. As a result, literally a week later, the number of Spider-Man sessions began to be reduced, and soon they were completely removed. Following him, "Bumblebee" collected less than it could have if it had not come out in such tough competition.

Distributors usually try to avoid such a "crush". The top movie is the most profitable, and releases like this are distributed for at least a week. Then each of them collects an excellent box office, and viewers have the opportunity to watch new blockbusters in turn.

But this did not happen on the initiative or through the fault of the distributors. And here it is enough to look at the releases The main film releases of Russia on December 20 and 27: "Policeman from Rublyovka", the seventh part of "Yolok" and the ninth cartoon about "Three heroes". They were given almost all the cinemas for the New Year holidays.

Of course, Aquaman and Grinch were still in the box office due to their popularity, but still, most of the cinemas showed exclusively Russian comedies. As a result, despite the unprecedented number of blockbusters, cinema attendance on New Year's holidays was quite low: the audience simply had nothing to watch.

Hurvinek vs. Royal Corgi

Another attempt to artificially clear the rental in order to increase the collection of the Russian cartoon caused a long-brewing riot on the part of the association of cinema owners. The thing is that the Ministry of Culture refused to issue a rental certificate to the Belgian animated film "Royal Corgi", which was scheduled for release on March 7, 2019.

On the same day, the domestic cartoon “Gurvinek. Magic game ". Therefore, the Ministry of Culture has proposed to move the "Royal Corgi" at the end of March or April. This means that the Belgian cartoon will skip the spring school break, the peak in movie attendance by children. The Association estimated the losses from such a castling at about 100 million rubles.

A still from the cartoon “Hurvinek. Magic game "

As a result, the association of cinema owners, as well as several non-affiliated cinema chains, put forward an ultimatum for the Ministry of Culture to abandon the Russian cartoon because of the Ministry of Culture: if it does not agree on the rental of the Royal Corgi, almost all major chains will refuse to show Gurvinek. But the Ministry of Culture did not change the distributors of the tapes "Royal Corgi" and "Gurvinek. Magic Game "did not agree to show the solution. As a result, the Belgian cartoon was postponed, and many cinemas excluded the Russian premiere from the schedule.

Age rating against young viewers

In addition to transferring dates, there is another method of influencing rental - the placement of age ratings. It would seem that the idea is useful and works almost all over the world. Moreover, serious restrictions apply only to films "18+" - children are not allowed there. The rest of the ratings are of a recommendatory nature.

But still, children can go to films "16+" only with their parents, which greatly affects the attendance. In theory, this also helps keep out harmful content. But in reality, ratings are artificially raised for many Western films. The Ministry of Culture dares children away from foreign films, while Russian releases, on the contrary, are underestimated. Sometimes it looks bizarre.

You can even try to guess in advance what age limit the Ministry of Culture has set for this or that release.

"Sobibor" is a film about a Nazi camp, which shows torture, naked prisoners and the burning of bodies. Age rating - 12+.

"Beauty and the Beast" is a game remake of the classic Disney fairy tale. Age rating - 16+. In the character of one of the characters, they saw a hint of homosexuality.

Somewhere there is a hint of homosexuality

"Indestructible" is a film about a tank battle during the Second World War. Blood, killed, burning people, cruelty. Age rating - 12+.

Power Rangers is a superhero fantasy about five high school girls in bright costumes saving the world. Age rating - 18+. Here again we saw hints of homosexual relations.

To top it off, the children's anime "Apprentice of the Monster" about raising a difficult teenager also received a 16+ rating at the box office, although there is not a single provocative theme at all. Apparently, it happened in the wake of the hype about the dangers of anime.

Why the viewer suffers

It may seem that all these restrictions and permutations only create problems for distributors or cinemas. But first of all, ordinary viewers always suffer, because they are deprived of the opportunity to watch good films at a convenient time.

First, such regulation turns into a censorship tool. Thus, Death of Stalin is a controversial film that would surely have failed in the Russian box office. But we will never know: the Ministry of Culture forbade viewers to choose whether to watch it or not.

Secondly, the prohibition of films like the same "Death of Stalin" will lead to the fact that distributors will begin to be more careful in purchasing any other non-standard and satirical films. So the Russian viewer can lose a huge cultural layer: from trash comedies like "The Swiss Knife Man" to dramas like "Call Me by Your Name".

Thirdly, going to the cinema on holidays is increasingly becoming a dubious undertaking: these days only Yolki and Policeman from Rublyovka remain in the box office without any alternative.

Cinemas and distributors are suffering colossal losses. The more there are, the less comfortable each trip to the cinema will become: the halls will change lamps and screens less often, and some cinemas may be closed altogether. And the distributors will have to compensate for the lost money. For example, raising prices for top films.

Finally, this approach greatly harms the quality of the very Russian cinema that the Ministry of Culture is trying to support.

The lack of fair competition allows even mediocre films to collect box office: the authors begin to think not about how to please the viewer, but about how to get approval from above.

The result is a faceless Russian cinema and an even greater number of prejudices around it. Clearing the box office and age restrictions only slightly increase the grossing of promoted films. After all, most people go to the cinema for a particular premiere and get upset not seeing it. We are losing not just films, but the very ability to choose them.