The Cinema Center network will develop in the DPR, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions

The federal network of cinemas “Cinema Center”, which operates under the auspices of the “Cinema Fund” and the Ministry of Culture, plans to open new establishments in the Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporozhye regions. The division in Donetsk is already working. Lawyers and market participants note potential risks for distributors providing films to the network. However, experts believe that “the scale of activity is not significant enough” for interest from Western regulators.

The Cinema Fund registered the domains centerkino-zp, centerkino-kh, centerkino-dnr, centerkino-lnr, and found Kommersant in the SPARK-Interfax database. The centerkino-dnr domain is already working, Kommersant was convinced. The Cinema Fund explained to Kommersant that these are domains for cinemas “operating in new territories and included in the Cinema Center project” (a project of the Cinema Fund and the Ministry of Culture). In general, there are 202 cinemas in the Cinema Center chain.

Cinemas in the cities of Yenakiyevo, Mangush, Novoazovsk, Starchenkovo ​​and Torez have already been opened in the DPR, follows from the information on the network’s website. The audience has access to films and animations: Hypnotik, Escape from the Land of Robots (Central Partnership), Baba Yaga Saves the World (Our Cinema), More Than People (Karoprokat, Planeta Inform ”), “Back to the Dinosaurs” (“Our Cinema”). Cinema Center is also going to develop cinemas in Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, Kommersant was told in the Cinema Fund.

The Cinema Fund referred to the words of the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova that a lot of work is being done in the Donbass to open cinemas. “Until February 2022, there were two of them in the Donbass. Now there are already 21 of them, and they are already working. The guys watch the same thing as we do, ”she said during a meeting with Vladimir Putin on July 5, specifying that another 28 halls will work in the DPR by the end of the year. In March, the President instructed the government, together with the authorities of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, to take additional measures to overhaul and reconstruct cultural institutions.

In May, Vladimir Tolstoy, adviser to the President of Russia on issues of culture and art, argued that cinemas would be opened in new regions of Russia with the support of the Cinema Fund.

Now fighting is underway in these territories, so any construction or renovation of a cinema becomes a risky project, notes a Kommersant source in the online cinema market: “In addition, distributors who allow films to be shown in these cinemas risk falling under restrictions from outside.” The US and the EU may impose sanctions against any person who conducts business in the territories of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, says Kirill Lyakhmanov, chief legal adviser of the intellectual property practice of the law firm EBR: “This also applies to the provision of non-exclusive licenses for the rental of certain films in cinemas in these territories.

Mergen Doraev, a partner at the EMPP Law Office, believes that it is more likely to wait for sanctions from Ukraine, “where they closely monitor any activity of Russian business in these territories.” According to the lawyer, “the scale of such commercial activity does not seem significant enough to interest US or EU regulators.” The sanctions of Ukraine at the moment, in fact, cannot affect the legal entities and individuals against whom they are introduced.

The very fact of entering new territories does not mean automatic materialization of sanctions risks, adds lawyer, partner of BGP Litigation Sergey Glandin: cinema”, then there are risks for them.

Julia Yurasova