The Ministry of Culture advocated tough measures against unofficial film distribution

Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova threatened to “sober up” cinemas with fines and closure for showing pirated copies of films. At the end of last year, “pre-show service”, which includes the unofficial distribution of Western blockbusters, brought market participants almost 11% of revenue – more than 4 billion rubles. Cinema chains claim that there is no need to tighten the policy: during the New Year holidays, pirated content was shown in less than 0.2% of cinemas. But Kommersant’s sources in the market object that this happens only during the release of the most striking and large-scale projects.

Pirate screenings of Hollywood films in cinemas may be stopped by fines or suspension of the demonstrator’s work, Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova said in an interview on January 18 “RIA News”: “The closure of two or three private cinemas, and not only private ones, these can also be municipal ones, where in fact something similar will happen, is always very sobering for the industry.” According to her, Russia “has no unfriendly directors,” and foreign producers receive distribution certificates if their films comply with current legislation.

Market participants say they are “extremely concerned” by the harsh announcement. However, Kommersant’s source in the Ministry of Culture emphasized that there is no talk of expanding the practice of punishing cinemas for pirated screenings of foreign films. Kommersant sent a request to the ministry.

The practice of “pre-show service” appeared in Russian cinemas due to the fact that large foreign studios refused to distribute their films in the Russian Federation after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. The viewer is sold a ticket for a short film or documentary, which has a distribution certificate; a Hollywood blockbuster is shown for free in front of it. Cinema hall owners explained that the measure was necessary to preserve business. Thus, according to the Film Distributor’s Bulletin, back in 2021, foreign films accounted for 73.76% of box office receipts. The disappearance of films from distribution led to a twofold drop in the revenue of major Russian cinema chains at the end of 2022, RBC reported.

At the end of 2023, the pirate film distribution market reached 4.19 billion rubles, the publication reported Cinemaplexreferring to data from the Unified Automated Information System.

The category’s share was 10.75% of the official market, they noted: “The Russian market works and earns money exclusively during the New Year holidays, foreign sanctioned releases help equalize the income of cinemas in other periods.”

The practice of punishing cinemas for pirated screenings already exists. The Department of the Ministry of Culture for the Siberian Federal District and Far Eastern Federal District opened a case against JSC Cinema Central for showing five films from September 29 to October 1, SakhaLife reported on December 14, 2023. It was specified that the cinema was fined under Art. 14.58 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation – showing a film without a distribution certificate. A representative of the Central Cinema explained in court that the measure was forced, it was required to avoid bankruptcy of the joint-stock company.

During the New Year holidays, pirated content was shown in less than 0.2% of cinema halls, emphasizes Alexey Voronkov, Chairman of the Association of Cinema Owners. “This did not happen because of some kind of ban, but because of an understanding of the scale of Russian projects – “Musicians of Bremen”, “Slave-2”, “Three Heroes and the Navel of the Earth”,” he says. According to him, the main problem is that Russian content is usually released between autumn and spring, so in the summer “in order to avoid failure in box office receipts, cinemas have to return to distributing Hollywood films.” Mr. Voronkov believes that by the end of 2025 the number of Russian films “will become so large-scale that cinemas will not have to resort to alternative screening.”

But Kommersant’s sources in the market emphasize that, with the exception of “large-scale New Year’s projects,” Western blockbusters are more popular than Russian films and tickets for them are more expensive. Kommersant’s interlocutors believe that it is large film distributors of domestic projects that are trying to squeeze competing pirated content out of the market.

Yulia Yurasova