Large foreign video services are increasingly acquiring rights to broadcast Russian film products.
In 2016, "Major" became the first series in which Netflix showed interest.
In subsequent years, Western platforms made deals with the creators of such popular films as Epidemic, Silver Skates, Method, Better than People, Trotsky, Sparta, Fartsa, Dyatlov Pass ...
One of the last Russian projects sold to the foreign market was the crime thriller Major Thunder: The Plague Doctor, based on the Bubble comic book series.
The chief editor of Bubble, one of the producers and screenwriters of the film, Roman Kotkov, in an interview with RT, admits that even while working on the project, the team was counting on attention from Western platforms, but the deal with such a streaming giant as Netflix was a pleasant surprise for everyone.
“We expected interest from various venues, but did not expect that we would be able to go to Netflix.
After all, this is the largest international platform, and this is very cool.
This is indeed a status project, ”says Katkov.
He draws attention to the fact that the film turned out to be of interest to the foreign audience no less than to the Russian.
“In the Russian box office, the film did not perform very well, but on streaming it breaks all records,” the producer emphasizes.
Roskino CEO Evgenia Markova notes that the interest of foreign sites in Russian products is due to the development of the domestic film industry.
“The success of Russian content in the world is the result of many positive changes that have taken place in the Russian industry in recent years.
In general, much more content is produced in Russia today than 10-20 years ago.
Russian directors try their hand at different genres, both in the traditionally strong for us animation, science fiction and drama, and in new directions, ”explains Markova.
She also emphasizes that the cooperation of filmmakers with Western specialists and the wide representation of domestic products abroad have gone to the benefit of the Russian industry.
“Ties are being established between the Russian and international industry - at the level of producers, directors, actors.
Russia is widely represented at all key international film markets and festivals.
All this also contributes to an increase in the number of transactions, which will only grow, ”says the general director of Roskino.
Shot from the series "Method"
© kino-teatr.ru
The director Yuri Bykov, who shot the series "Method", has a different point of view.
In his opinion, Netflix primarily focuses not on the quality and other characteristics of content, but on subscribers.
The purpose of the site, according to the director, is to attract new viewers.
“I have a conspiracy theory.
Netflix is a content base that collects not so much content as subscribers who subscribe to this content, who love and watch it.
Therefore, it seems to me that Netflix buys everything that is more or less significant by region, "Bykov suggests.
He notes that Netflix is "just a base for gathering people."
“And people love films, then they will love some other goods,” the filmmaker emphasizes.
General producer of the company "Sreda" Ivan Samokhvalov, who participated in the work on the projects "Major", "Pishcheblok", "Method", "Gogol. Beginning ”and many others, also from a pragmatic point of view, assesses the interest of foreign sites in Russian content. He believes that the reason was, among other things, the desire of large platforms to reach as many viewers as possible and to seriously compete with domestic sites.
“The increase in the number of such deals indicates the increasing quality of Russian content and the growing interest of international players in the Russian market. Accordingly, Netflix can no longer be considered only a Western platform, because it operates in Russia and fights for the Russian viewer in the same way as IVI, Kinopoisk, Megogo and more.tv. Now there is absolutely no news and PR-reason that the Russian TV series has sold the rights to Netflix, since Netflix is starting to actively row all Russian content, thus fighting for the viewer directly with our Russian platforms, ”explains Samokhvalov.
Nevertheless, the filmmaker is extremely positive about such deals.
He is confident that the cooperation of Russian companies with international services significantly increases competition, which leads to the emergence of better quality products.
“Such a trend will certainly have an impact on our market and its results can already be observed on the example of the growth in the quality of Russian TV series, which brings them closer to becoming on a par with international projects as soon as possible,” Samokhvalov believes.
Shot from the TV series "Major"
© kinopoisk.ru
The head of Roskino, Evgenia Markova, is also confident that this kind of cooperation allows the world "to better get to know the country in general and the industry in particular."
“A few years ago, only a few cult Soviet directors knew about the world.
Today, the situation is changing dramatically before our eyes, including thanks to the success of Russian content on the world's leading platforms, as well as at the world's major film festivals.
Now cooperation is not limited to the purchase of Russian content - our creative personnel receive invitations to participate in international projects, and a significant number of projects are initiated with the participation of Russia as a co-production partner, ”says Markova.
As an example, she cited the film "Coupe No. 6", which was awarded the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.
Filmmakers from Finland, Estonia, Russia and Germany took part in the filming.
“In general, thanks to a new wave of Russian talents, including Kantemir Balagov, Kirill Serebrennikov, Danila Kozlovsky, Kira Kovalenko, as well as enthusiastic and ambitious producers, interest and attitude towards the industry as a whole is growing, therefore our position on the world markets are strengthening every year, ”concludes the general director of Roskino.
Netflix
in Russia
Some large foreign video services, including Disney + and HBO Max, still do not work in Russia.
Netflix became available to Russian viewers in 2015.
The company hoped that this step would bring the site to a fundamentally new level.
Potential viewers greeted the news with enthusiasm, but their joy was short-lived.
The site turned out to be inconvenient for the Russian-speaking viewer, since all its navigation remained in English.
In addition, a lot of content was not provided with either dubbing or subtitling.
As The Moscow Times wrote in January 2016, another obstacle was the rather modest catalog, which was initially available in Russia.
If the American version of Netflix at that time included about 5700 films and TV series, then the Russian version - about 700. Finally, the cost of a monthly subscription to the video service was too high compared to the prices of Russian sites - at least € 8 (660 rubles).
At the end of 2019, the platform accounted for 4% of the Russian video services market.
In the fall of 2020, Netflix was localized for the Russian market.
Around the same time, it became known about the company's plans to duplicate several thousand films and TV series and replenish the catalog with Russian-made projects.
Currently available on the site are the paintings "9th Company", "Legend No. 17", "Stalingrad", "Brother", "Brother 2", "Crew", "I'm Losing Weight", "Boomer", "Moving Up" and many other.
Shot from the film "Brother 2"
© kinopoisk.ru
According to the Flix Patrol portal, Russian films on Netflix are watched most by viewers from Russia.
The service compiles and daily updates a world ranking based on the popularity of a particular project in different countries.
If a film tops the domestic top in some territory, then ten points are awarded to it.
For the second position, the tape receives nine points, for the third - eight, and so on.
Major Thunder: The Plague Doctor, which topped the world rankings in July, scored 573 points in Russia in 96 days and 264 in Ukraine in 41 days.
In other territories, his results have not yet exceeded 200 points, but he has been going there for no more than three weeks.
The highest rates for the project are in Morocco (191 points in 23 days), Slovakia (187 - 22), Oman (174 - 21) and Hungary (170 - 18).
Viewers from the CIS countries are primarily interested in other Russian projects.
Major Thunder: The Plague Doctor became the first in Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Oman, Qatar, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and Cyprus.
Silver Skates won first place in Brazil.
Evgenia Markova emphasizes that Russian content is also present on other large foreign platforms - Amazon Prime, Hulu, iQiyi, and this speaks not only of Netflix's desire to grow its audience, but also of the interest of Western viewers in Russian products.
“Undoubtedly, VOD platforms provide access to international viewers, and we see the growing interest of the world in domestic content,” explains the CEO of Roskino.
Non-standard heroes and national flavor
Markova connects the success of Russian films on the world stage with the growth of the quality of domestic content and other features that distinguish it favorably from the general mass.
“Buyers from all over the world (we regularly conduct polls of international colleagues at Roskino) note that the quality of Russian content has grown significantly in recent years.
This is confirmed by the box office: by the end of 2020, Russian releases entered the top 7 in the world.
Among the strengths of domestic content, in addition to quality, are the cultural historical context, acting and an interesting plot, ”says Markova.
A scene from the movie "Major Thunder: The Plague Doctor"
© kinopoisk.ru
Roman Kotkov adheres to a similar point of view.
He believes that the success of Major Grom: The Plague Doctor is due to its national flavor, which not only made the film stand out from others, but also allowed foreign viewers to learn something new about Major Grom's homeland and Russian cinema in general.
“He is precisely Russian, he has a Russian soul - locations, characters, emotions.
And it seems to me that it is interesting that you can make a high-quality film on a new topic that is interesting for international streaming ... Foreign viewers will also learn something about Russia, see the city of St. Petersburg, heroes, see how our country lives. .. Here we want to show the whole world that we in Russia can produce high-quality content, ”says Kotkov.
Among other advantages of the project that could attract a foreign audience, he singles out a universal story and comics underlying it - such products, according to the filmmaker, are now especially popular.
Ivan Samokhvalov, in turn, believes that so far the interest of foreign viewers in Russian-made projects is growing very slowly.
In his opinion, in order for the situation to change radically, Russian filmmakers need to cooperate more with colleagues from other countries.
“Everything will change as soon as international large projects created in Russia begin to appear on Netflix.
Potentially, in the future it will be "Anna Karenina", in the past - the series "Epidemic".
We will release ten such series a year, and in two years everyone will know that world projects are being produced in Russia.
Then there will be no need to draw the viewer's attention to them, he himself will want to watch Russian serials, because they will not be like anything else, like, for example, Russian literature of the times of the golden age, ”the producer believes.
In addition, according to him, the success of Russian projects is highly dependent on budgets, which are still far behind the production costs of Western filmmakers.
As a result, domestic paintings do not even visually hold up to foreign ones.
“The European viewer does not identify the production value (the cost of production. -
RT
), he just looks, whether the series is similar in quality to the projects to which he is accustomed, or not.
If he doesn’t look alike, then he probably won’t even look, but if so, then we need to captivate and intrigue with something, ”says Ivan Samokhvalov.
The producer names non-standard characters and deep, dramatic plots as the advantages of Russian products that may arouse the interest of a foreign viewer.
Samokhvalov believes: “In the West there is a large palette of identical heroes, but we can show a Russian, a special person who makes strange and sometimes paradoxical decisions, for which the consciousness of a Western person is not ready and, perhaps, is not capable of thinking like that, because he lives in completely different mental realities ".
“The faster the quality of Russian TV series grows to the international market, the sooner a new star will light up on it, not only Israeli, Norwegian, Scandinavian, French TV series, but also Russian ones.
Thus, the viewer will have more variety and the opportunity to see about himself: about people like them from India, about people like them from Norway, about people like us, viewers from Russia, with their own a certain Russian peculiarity, "- says Samokhvalov.
According to Evgenia Markova, Russian filmmakers should also pay attention to the development of screenwriting and pay more attention to the production of fantasy and spectacular action films.
The general director of Roskino believes that this is the kind of product the Western audience expects from Russia.