| ZHANG: The global economic downturn may be causing business people in many sectors to wonder how theyll survive. But some in Russia's film industry seem to believe that the financial crisis could actually help them. STORY: We might see a move to quality rather than quantity as the financial crisis tightens its grip on global business and movie making. [Karen Shakhnazarov, Mosfilm General Director]: "This [crisis] may result with film budgets being cut and there will be fewer movies produced, but on the other hand thanks to crisis the quality of the movies may become better, the history tells us that such crisis and lack of money inspiring the appearance of great things in world cinema, which conquered the world like Italian new realism, French new wave in 60 s, American movies in 70 s. Anton Makertychev, a film director, producing a fantasy movie hasnt seen any changes. [Anton Makertychev, Film Director]: "Everybody at Mosfilm is saying that everything is being closed, but I only heard rumors about this. One major source of investment in the sector has been the government, providing almost 40 percent of all funding for Russian films. In addition to this, the government has proposed that up to 2 billion rubles are allocated to 10 "national" film projects. But falling oil prices have raised questions as to whether the government will come through. As big private investors focus on problems with their core businesses and banks cut production financing, a slowdown in film ... |
