Russian Cinema in troubled times

Abstract

The end of the Soviet era opened a period of financial distress and artistic disorientation in the film industry. The transition to the free market was too abrupt; price liberalization, privatization, the collapse of the centralized system of production and distribution, the deterioration of the studios, inadequate law enforcement to guarantee copyright, rampant video piracy, and the general decline of disposable income among the population combined to push film production down to an alarming low. The films of shock capitalism do not easily fall into a trend or a movement. Many reassess the past, placing different spins on various epochs and figures according to the director's ideological orientation. Others reflect the reality of the present day, either in dramatic or grotesque form. Still others offer escapism into imaginary worlds. About 50 films are surveyed here. They vary in production values and intellectual level, but each is a document of the specific time and place in which it was produced. Each film, therefore, is relevant as a cultural product of this bizarre Russian fin de sicle.

Inverting film policy: film as nation builder in post-Soviet Russia, 1991-2005

“…Are we facing a complete fiasco or may we nurture some hope?' The average annual number of cinema visits per Russian had dropped from seven in 1991 to one in 1995 (Beumers, 1999a;Lawton, 2002). The number of films produced had likewise dwindled, from 137 in 1993 to 72 in 1994, 58 in 1995, and just 38 in 1996.…”

“…Her focus is on the organization of the film industry rather than the ideological rationale of the government. Lawton's (2002Lawton's ( , 2006 main focus are the films, incorporated in a socio-political-cultural context and the realities of film production. As a result, the question of film's potential ideological value to the state remains largely unexplored.…”

National identity (de)construction in recent independent cinema: Kirill Serebrennikov’sYuri’s Dayand Sergei Loznitsa’sMy Joy

“…Her study is the latest in a large body of scholarship since 1992 that analyses post-Soviet cinema's preoccupation with the past (Boym 2001;Lawton 2002;Gillespie 2002;and Hashamova 2006). Citing Oleg Sulkin and Lev Gudkov respectively, she characterizes post-Soviet Russia as an 'ideological vacuum' that has largely subscribed to a 'negative identity', that is, an identity defined primarily by its rejection of another system of values -in this case, a rejection of Soviet ideology (Sulkin 2008, 113;Gudkov 2004).…”