"The difference in mentality is a chimera": Karen Shakhnazarov on the popularity of Soviet films and the shortage of personnel in the film industry

- How is Mosfilm coping with the pandemic?

Have you already managed to return to full-time work?

- In principle, we have returned to full-fledged work.

They recovered pretty quickly - almost immediately after the end of quarantine.

Of course, we had significant losses: we do not receive any budgetary support funds, we work only on the basis of our own income and expenses.

But they managed to recover.

And today (for now, anyway) we have a fairly stable situation.

- How long will it take for the Russian film industry as a whole to recover from the consequences of the pandemic?

- It is very difficult to predict how this will affect the film industry.

Apparently not very good.

But so far it is difficult to draw conclusions.

- In your opinion, will the world of cinema remain the same, or has the pandemic changed some aspects forever?

- Depends on the situation.

If everything continues indefinitely, this threatens the disappearance of the usual cinema.

I grew up in cinema, which was focused on cinemas, and I remember big premieres: I had two, two and a half thousand (viewers -

) on films.

Now it is already very difficult to imagine that this is possible.

If the cinema starts to go online more and more, if the audience gets out of the habit of cinemas, then this will affect the cinema itself.

For the Internet (films are filmed. -

) is not the same as for cinemas.

This is a different rhythm, a different time.

This can affect the style of cinema in general.

There can be very serious changes.

But it all depends on how long it will last.

- So there is still a chance that viewers will return to cinemas from streaming services?

Has this moment been missed yet?

- I think so far.

But in the future, the viewer may simply begin to lose the habit.

This is also a kind of habit.

- Do you yourself use streaming services - Russian or foreign?

- No, I read books.

I watch little movies.

And I practically do not look through the Internet resources, it is somehow not very close to me.

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- You have been in the film industry for over 40 years.

Can you recall any events during this time that influenced the film industry just as strongly?

- 1991, when the USSR collapsed.

A very difficult period - the industry was practically destroyed.

I think the film industry may have suffered the most as a result of those events.

Little was said about this: cinema is still not such an important industry, not oil.

But in general, the Soviet film industry was destroyed almost to the ground.

There was a very difficult period somewhere from 1991 to 1998, it was accompanied by the departure of a huge number of professionals, including the first link.

The directors worked as taxi drivers ... Then the film industry somehow began to recover.

Perhaps it was a more disastrous moment than today.

- What resources were used to bring the industry back to life?

- When I became the director of the Mosfilm studio in 1998, it was in a completely destroyed state.

There was no technology, nothing, it didn't work.

But somehow we restored everything.

Now "Mosfilm", we can safely say, is one of the best studios in the world in terms of technology and quality.

Apparently, each in his place, somehow everything worked out.

Then, with the arrival of Putin, funding was restored, a system of supporting cinema appeared.

Mosfilm did not receive support from the state, but many producers began to receive it, came to us and paid for our services.

At that time we were already modernizing.

Everything was interconnected.

I must say that a film industry has been created in Russia.

Unfortunately, it is not yet as strong as we would like.

But in general, this is already the film industry.

And the technologies that Russian cinema has are not inferior to foreign ones.

Of course, we do not have enough pictures: 100 films for theatrical distribution are not enough.

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- What area of ​​the Russian film industry do you think is especially lacking in specialists?

There is an opinion that we have few sensible scriptwriters.

- There is a great deficit of quality in all professions.

At least professionals of a really good class, I'm not even talking about artists, this is generally a big deficit.

Both screenwriters and directors.

There are many professions in cinema.

An ordinary viewer thinks little about this, but a movie cannot be made alone.

It is made not by a screenwriter and director, but by tens, hundreds of people of different professions.

And every profession is difficult.

Sound engineers, sound recording equipment mechanics, cameramen, dressers, props, costume designers, make-up artists ... There is a shortage of specialists in all professions.

-

- I think our courses turned out to be a very successful project.

By the way, we started it at a time when everyone said: "Nobody needs this."

Over the years, we have trained a thousand and a half specialists, and 80 percent are working very successfully, many have achieved significant results.

It seems to me a successful project.

We are preparing the second link.

That is, assistant actors, cameramen, second cameramen, decorators, sound engineers, sound engineer assistants.

True, there were courses for editors and production designers.

- Contemporary Russian films do not come out on the foreign market very often.

Why do you think?

Is it difficult to break into someone else's market, does the difference in mentality play a role or is the reason for something else?

- The difference in mentality is all a chimera.

I have participated in festivals many times, my paintings were shown abroad.

I must say: as a rule, the reaction of the public is the same here and here.

The audience is the same everywhere, regardless of skin color and eye shape.

I think that Russian films are not watchable enough in general

Frankly speaking, Russian cinema does not occupy the first positions in our home market either.

So it's probably a quality issue after all.

I repeat that there are some very successful films, but on the whole, our film production has even bigger problems.

- It is obvious that the Russian film industry should not copy the experience of foreign colleagues as a carbon copy,

- It's a difficult question, you know.

This path develops itself somehow.

For example, the phenomenon of Soviet cinema is still very popular.

We own a collection of Soviet films produced at Mosfilm and sell pictures.

They are very popular abroad, and people still buy them.

They buy not Russian, but mostly Soviet cinema.

Why?

Probably, there was something in the Soviet that still attracts the public.

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In principle, it seems to me, its main advantage is that it existed at all ... It was national.

It was not like any other movie.

It preserved the tradition of our culture, which came from our great classics: humanism, attention to the little man, psychologism.

These components, apparently, give the originality of our cinema.

And he is appreciated all over the world.

And, by the way, on YouTube - we posted a collection there - we have about 30 million views every month (some of the paintings have subtitles).

We see that the audience is gigantic.

Every week about 140 thousand views from the United States alone.

Yes, some are immigrants, but half are natural Americans.

Indonesia, India, Philippines, Latin America, all of Europe, Africa, Arab countries - everyone is watching.

As you can see, they are interested in Soviet cinema.

Watch the full version of the interview with Karen Shakhnazarov on RTD.