Brazil will replace Hollywood – Kommersant

After foreign Universal, Disney, Sony, Warner left the Russian Federation, domestic filmmakers are looking for new partners in friendly countries. Thus, joint production of films with Brazil is being discussed at the interstate level. Even before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Russia cooperated with China. For countries that do not lead the world in film production, this is a chance to enter a market with a potential audience of 150 million viewers, experts say.

Brazil and Russia are working on an agreement on the joint production of films, the country’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, Rodrigo de Lima Baena Soares, told RIA Novosti on August 30. The parties also agreed to hold a meeting of the working group on culture in August ahead of the meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Brazilian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation.

According to Kommersant’s interlocutors in the media market, the agreement is still “under development”, so the parameters of possible cooperation are unknown. In South America, they specify, they are already actively promoting Russian TV series (primarily costume dramas), and Roskino brings multi-genre films to the country, “probing the soil.”

Filmmakers are also interested in other “friendly” areas: last week, the Telegram channel of the Ministry of Culture reported that on August 24, within the framework of meetings with representatives of the PRC, a partnership on the Eurasian Film Academy was discussed. Russian filmmakers are already cooperating with Chinese ones. So, in 2019, a film jointly produced by Russian Film Group Corporation and China Film Group Corporation was released, as well as a project of Russian All Media Company, Central Partnership and Chinese U.Lan Media Xuzhou Ltd., Zhejiang Huace Film & TV Co. Ltd. – “How I became Russian,” recalls the interlocutor of “Kommersant” in the online cinema market.

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the circle of possible partners for Russian studios turned out to be sharply limited. Foreign Hollywood rights holders and studios, such as Universal, Disney, Sony, Warner, left the country, although before that cooperation was active.

In 2017, Disney and the Russian Yellow, Black and White (YBW) released the fairy tale film The Last Hero, Sony Pictures has invested in films such as Stalingrad, Attraction, Ice, Summer and Draft”, and in 2018 it launched a division of “Sony Pictures Production and Releasing” in the Russian Federation. As part of the partnership between Universal Pictures International (UPI) and Mars Media, it was planned to release the films Woland and Mira.

To keep the audience, many studios are already stepping up work with their South American and Asian counterparts. Thus, the TNT channel began pre-production of a feature film in co-production with India. “It will be a big Indian film about two brothers who were separated by fate and who, thanks to the same fate, will eventually meet and find the love of their mother and father,” Tina Kandelaki, director of the channel, specified at the end of May.

Cooperation with Brazil in the field of cinematography looks logical, the profile Telegram channel VODovorott notes: “The country already has extensive experience in collaboration with large studios – productions from the USA, France, and Spain worked there. For Russian filmmakers, this will mean the emergence of another exotic location where you can film your project. Expanding the geography of production, new faces and a new potential audience – in this regard, the benefits of joint work for both parties to the agreement are the same.

Expocontent CEO Alexandra Modestova emphasizes that, at the expense of the Russian Federation, Brazil can enter the freed market with a potential audience of 150 million people. Moreover, the viewer, the expert adds, is already familiar with the aesthetics of Brazilian films: “Let’s recall, for example, “Slave Izaura”, which opened the world of telenovelas to Soviet people.”

Julia Yurasova