The Association of Cinema Owners (AVK), on behalf of the organization's chairman Alexei Voronkov, has published an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to instruct the government to develop and implement real support measures for the film distribution industry as soon as possible.
The open letter emphasizes that the current critical situation threatens the existence of cinemas in Russia.
Voronkov noted that over the past four months, “an enormous amount of work has been done to replace foreign films from unfriendly countries that have fallen out of circulation” with various content, but the measures taken are not enough to save the business, since these efforts were able to provide only 5% of box office receipts and tickets sold in cinemas with a 70% drop in revenue compared to the average monthly figures of previous years.
As the chairman of AVK told RT, the organization has been trying to “reach out” to the authorities for a long time, offering various ways to return viewers to the cinema and increase revenue.
The association initially applied to the Ministry of Culture, and then to the government and the State Duma.
Having not received the expected result, which could help the distributors to stay afloat, the members of AVK turned directly to the President of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the chairman of the association said that the Ministry of Culture has implemented some support measures, such as the introduction of the Pushkin Card, but this is not enough in the current situation.
“Today, all the support measures that have been proposed, including those of the Ministry of Culture, are of a certain capitalist nature.
Even the "Pushkin Card", which was introduced by the Ministry of Culture as a lifeline for cinemas.
It started on February 1st, long before this crisis, and was aimed only at increasing attendance.
She really made 10-15% of the turnover.
But the turnover of cinemas has now fallen by 70%, ”Voronkov said.
He also expressed the opinion that the funds allocated in March to film producers in the amount of 14.5 billion rubles will be implemented within two years, and the film business does not have this time - help is needed now.
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When asked what proposals the association has for support measures that could save the situation, Voronkov gave two solutions.
“We are left with two main directions: either to ask for financial support in the short term until the moment when Russian films are released to the market in sufficient quantities, or to resolve issues on the non-contractual use of rights with the obligatory payment of remuneration to the copyright holder, which is essentially the same as and parallel imports for goods,” the AVK chairman said.
The expert noted that after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the government quickly found a solution to the problem of supplying foreign goods to the Russian Federation - with the help of parallel imports.
However, it was not possible to come up with a similar scheme for cinema.
“Now we understand that it is possible to bring a studio copy of the film to the territory of Russia.
Many studios, despite the fact that none of them specifically admit that they want to work with Russia, are really looking for ways to return to the Russian Federation and not lose this market, ”said the head of AVK.
Among other things, Voronkov admitted that the deputies react quite sharply to any negotiations on this topic, noting that the law must first be changed, and only after that “how to move, talk”.
“Finding intermediaries who will bring a studio copy to the Russian Federation turned out to be not such a big problem as accepting the parallel import model itself.
But as soon as it comes to cinema, for some reason our deputies speak out in an extremely harsh form that only Soviet cinema will save us, ”Voronkov explained.
Meanwhile, the film distribution industry is still in a deplorable state, and those forecasts that were announced by experts in the spring, according to Voronkov, will come true.
“We said that by the end of the summer we could lose up to 50% of cinema halls.
To date, from 140 to 180 cinemas in Russia have been closed.
In July, we tracked every day the number of cinema halls that did not show a single session per day, and in mid-July, we recorded 39% of cinemas on one of the days,” said the chairman of the association.
He also gave disappointing forecasts for the fall of 2022, saying that in September AVK members expect a second wave of movie theater bankruptcies.
“In the autumn, a large financial burden will fall on cinemas: the deferral of tax payments to funds and loans will come to an end, and against the background of the inability to fill the halls with domestic content in the shortest possible time, we will receive large financial losses.
In September, we predict the beginning of the second stage of bankruptcy of cinemas.
Therefore, there is not much time left, ”the expert said.
Earlier, Roman Isaev, board member of the Association of Cinema Owners, asked the government to remove responsibility for showing Hollywood films without a distribution certificate.
He explained that in the current legislative field for broadcasting unlicensed tapes, cinemas can fall under administrative and criminal liability.
At the same time, Isaev believes that parallel imports, due to their “legal regulation”, cannot be implemented in the field of cinema.
According to him, this is only possible with physical goods.
In turn, Anatoly Sergeev, general director of the Kinologistika company, believes that the distribution of films without a license will “throw the country back to the 1990s” and will not be able to save the film business in the country, since people will not pay for the same pirated film that they can watch at home for free .