The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) launched an investigation against Kinokvartal LLC. The subject of the proceedings was the Russian-language film co-founder of "Kinokvartala" Vladimir Zelensky "I, you, he, she."

Office initiated the case Solomenskiy district court of Kiev. This was reported by the agency "Ukrinform" with reference to the chairman of the public organization "Ukrainian Self-Defense" Oleksandr Dudka.

“Dudka handed the NABU a resolution of the Solomensky District Court, which obliges to initiate proceedings against presidential candidate Vladimir Zelensky on the fact of embezzlement of public funds,” the publication said.

According to Dudka, the picture “I, you, he, she” was supposed to come out either in Ukrainian or in the Crimean Tatar language, but it turned out to be completely Russian-speaking.

Dudka noted that he had turned to law enforcement agencies on this issue back in January 2019, where he was redirected to NABU. However, the ministry allegedly ignored his statement, after which the activist decided to go to court.

In turn, the director of the anti-corruption bureau, Artyom Sytnik, noted that earlier, based on the results of an information and analytical test, the NABU did not establish the fact of crime, and therefore did not start a criminal case.

At the same time, at the beginning of the month, representatives of the Union of Volunteers organization sent a statement to NABU, in which they accused Kinokvartal of committing an offense. The “Union” explained that a controversial situation arose around Zelensky’s painting “I, You, He, She,” whose 49% of the budget was financed by the State Committee for Cinematography of Ukraine.

"Small fuss"

After the release, the film “I, You, He, She” was really criticized by Ukrainian cultural observers. The dubbing, for example, was pointed out by the critic Igor Grabovich, noting that the articulation of the lips did not coincide with the words of the actors.

“Still, the Ukrainian dubbing produces a strange effect in the film. The film was shot in Russian and for rental in Ukraine was duplicated in Ukrainian. First, for some reason, only the sync is heard from the soundtrack - and that is not very clear, the noises are substantially muffled. Secondly, the articulation of the lips does not match the words of the actors. The feeling of all this is that you are watching a foreign film with a hastily made dubbing, ”said Grabovic.

  • Shot from the movie "I, You, He, She"
  • © kinopoisk.ru

The fact that the film was shot in Russian was indicated by the head of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, Alexander Okhrimenko. According to him, this was the reason for the fighters against corruption to declare that the state funds allocated for the film were stolen.

“I understand that this is still with the filing Poroshenko. While he is the incumbent president, he can influence security agencies that are fighting corruption. As soon as Zelensky becomes president, I think it will quickly close. This is such a minor scuffle, a minor dirty trick, which Poroshenko wants to do to Zelensky goodbye, ”Okhrimenko said in an interview with RT.

Experts have no doubt: such claims to Zelensky will continue to be advanced. Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, emphasizes that during the election campaign to the Verkhovna Rada the opposition will continue to discredit the elected president.

“He won only the first round of struggle, and now this idea actually indicates the beginning of the election campaign to the Verkhovna Rada. Those forces that will oppose Zelensky, of course, will try to elect the election campaign to the maximum extent to discredit him in a variety of ways, ”Shapovalov said. “Actually, including the proven electoral technology is the initiation of criminal cases and an information campaign to discredit, which is both the background and the main goal.”

From KVN to the film studio

LLC Kinokvartal is one of more than a dozen companies whose founders include Zelensky. One of the first such companies was Studio Quarter 95, which was founded by members of the KVN team “95th quarter” in the early 2000s. The collective itself was formed in the city of Krivoy Rog a little earlier - in 1997. The establishment of the film company was explained by the desire to create entertainment programs on television and radio.

In addition to Vladimir Zelensky, Boris and Sergey Shefira, Sergey Sozanovsky participated in the creation of the studio. Among the television projects of "Quarter 95" were the humorous shows "Evening Quarter", "Laughing Comedian" and "Evening Kiev".

In parallel, the studio began to shoot television series. In 2007, together with the director Andrei Yakovlev, Zelensky formed the Kinokvartal company, which began writing scripts for movies.

At different times, the companies collaborated with the Ukrainian TV channels "1 + 1" and "Inter", as well as with the Russian "STS", "REN TV", "Channel One" and "Russia-1".

The first tape, the script to which was written by representatives of the company, was “Love in the big city”, where Zelensky played one of the key roles. In total, the company has about a dozen full-length films in its assets, most of which were shot together with Russian filmmakers.

The last film to be released on the big screens was “I, you, he, she”. Tape - directorial debut Zelensky. He put the picture together with the filmmaker David Dodson. According to Ukrainian media, "I, you, he, she" - the record holder of Ukrainian hire. During the first weeks of hire, the film collected $ 2.6 million.

On April 24, it became known that Zelensky would leave the projects of his companies - the showman's place will be taken by other project participants.