Socio-political features and prospects for the development of the Russian movie industry through the prism of the history of soviet cinema and international film industry experience

Abstract

The article is devoted to the Russian movie industry and the problems that national cinema is currently facing. This applies to surface level, urgent difficulties, such as the rapid decline in cinema attendance in the absence of Hollywood tentpoles at the box office, as well as to deeper shortcomings, among them the lack of Russian cinema's own identity. The author describes how the modern system of state support of the movie industry unwittingly leads to a deluge of similar run-of-the-mill movies, which not only negatively affects the total revenue of Russian cinemas, but also does not allow the domestic film market to grow, as well as effectively perform its socio-political functions. Patriotic high-budget blockbusters have become the most demanded type of Russian film production in recent years, the plot of which is based on events from Russian history, told in the language of Western commercial cinema. The rare but nevertheless sound successes of such films have led to the system under which these types of movies receive the lion's share of budget funding. Disregarding the fact that box office data shows that viewers are more often attracted to films of a smaller scale, but about lives of our contemporaries of today and tomorrow. The current situation in the Russian movie industry is compared with the experience of the formation of the Soviet cinema and withe the development of national film industries of China, South Korea and France.