At a meeting of the committee on culture, an argument erupted over American films

On October 12, a meeting of the Committee on Culture was held in the State Duma to discuss the draft federal budget for 2023-2025. Actually, this event consisted of two parts. First, in the presence of the head of the Ministry of Culture, Olga Lyubimova, the parliamentarians talked about the budget, and then they invited experts and representatives of relevant departments to analyze the situation with import substitution in the field of culture. The event, in general, is working, and partly monotonous. Thank you, although an associate of Zakhar Prilepin, deputy Dmitry Kuznetsov, brought a little “drive” to him.

Speaking very briefly about the budget document, it is worth quoting the words of Elena Yampolskaya, Chairman of the Committee on Culture. She urged the project to support, we quote, “realizing the inevitable reductions against the backdrop of unprecedented sanctions.” That is, more money will not be given for culture in the coming years, but all key items of expenditure will be financed. The rest of the debate, which took about an hour, is minor details. For example, such: will circuses be included in the Pushkin Card? The question is hardly an urgent one, but respected gentlemen officials are taking the time to figure out whether to consider circus performances part of education. Because if so, then children and teenagers will be allowed to walk on them for free. And if it’s purely entertainment, then no. Although the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova hopes that in the end they will still allow it.

And at this time, circus performers have big problems. They were voiced – already at the import substitution meeting – by Edgard Zapashny. “As for the fabrics for costumes used in the circus industry – this is supplex and others, nothing of the kind is produced in our country. We cannot use anything from Russian lighting equipment – from lamps to screens, ”admitted the world-famous trainer.

He frankly revealed all the cards – the equipment that is already there is made in the USA, Canada and England, and already has significant wear and tear. And how and with what to work in a few years – Zapashny does not know.

“Heroes” vs “Batman”

But back to the children. Surprisingly, all they want to give is knowledge. They argued furiously and emotionally about the support of cinemas, and Olga Lyubimova reproached the distributors, which they only do is ask them to compensate for the losses from the refusal of Western studios to release films in Russia. But the minister considers allocating additional funds for this an ineffective measure:

“Money will still run out. This is a systemic issue. We are waiting for clear proposals on what the Ministry of Culture and cinemas could do together.”

What, according to Lyubimova, should the cinema become? It turns out that it is an educational center where you can bring a child for 4 hours, so that they give him a lecture and somehow enlighten him, and at the same time show a “film from the golden collection”. That is, a child rushing to the cinema to see the next part of Spider-Man and eat a bucket of popcorn will end up either in the end or in a “lecture with slides”, as in an old Soviet joke. And then he will consider both the school and the cinema to be a place where something is forcibly pushed into his head. And he will completely go into the world that a smartphone or laptop opens for him.

But the worst thing is that the alternative to this is the banal theft of the production of foreign filmmakers.

Dmitry Kuznetsov, a deputy, an associate of the writer and party leader Zakhar Prilepin, said that it was urgent to develop a plan to save domestic cinema networks. And he assured that representatives of this industry, with rare exceptions (the names of the owners who are afraid of personal sanctions were mentioned), are in favor of the opportunity to use foreign content without a license.

This proposal outraged Yampolskaya so much that she considered it necessary to announce to everyone present that this idea was the personal opinion of Dmitry Vladimirovich:

“How can you talk about a rotten Hollywood movie, and with the other hand offer to steal it,” Yampolskaya literally “exploded”.

“Your North Korean version can also be discussed,” Kuznetsov did not remain in debt. And he stressed that he was offering his country not the path of the DPRK, but the path of the People’s Republic of China. (Also living under sanctions, but where films like “Batman v Superman” or “Justice League” collect $ 100 million at the box office).

Between the two extremes (turning the cinema into a Soviet club or playing “pirated copies” there) there is a third way. And Lyubimova mentioned it – this is to make sure that the three of us go to the cinema, that is, to shoot more films of the level of “Upward Movement” and “The Last Hero”. The idea is sound, but “Bogatyrs” – for all their popularity and remarkableness – these are not Netflix series that “bewitched” 90% of young Russians. In fact, it is not so easy to replace products and meanings.

In the country of Prokofiev, they “forgot how” to make pianos

There are clear achievements in terms of import substitution. Thus, the country had enough capacity to meet the needs of the same children’s music schools, where recently the wear rate for instruments reached 70%. Dmitry Kolobov, Director of the Department for the Development of the Industry of Socially Significant Goods, cited such data in his speech.

“We managed to revive the production of pianos and grand pianos, wind instruments, which was previously lost in Russia, and expand the range of percussion instruments produced,” Kolobov testified.

What cannot be replaced in any way is supplied from friendly countries or as part of “parallel imports”. The representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade is sure that it is stupid to open factories in order not to buy specialized equipment abroad “out of principle”:

“Everything should have economic feasibility. We can expand the production of one or two positions, but we will face the bankruptcy of the enterprise over time.

What is missing? As mentioned above, “gadgets” that give light, climatic, sound-reproducing equipment, stage equipment, air conditioning systems, software. It’s not always high-tech things. And here it is worth quoting the general director of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Urin:

– We understand the need for import substitution, but for the transitional period we must receive goods from abroad. I have a huge request to the Ministry of Industry and Trade – there was a normal system when we asked for permission to purchase such goods for a year. Now we are immersed in the procedure for each position. We sent a request for women’s ballet shoes, but instead of permission after a month, we received a refusal after three months. At the same time – we quote Urin – we do not produce high-quality ballet shoes.

It is difficult to understand how it turns out that pianos or microphones are no worse in quality than Sennheiser and Schur, but normal Czechs are not. Maybe there is simply no “feedback” between producers and end users, that is, theaters.

And if so, such meetings and meetings are needed.