The Second International Conference "Film Business in Ukraine" has taken place!

On June 1, 2009 the Second International Conference "Film Business in Ukraine" organized by  Media Resources Management was held in the conference-hall of the President Hotel. The holding of this conference for the second time (in the very heat of the crisis) indisputably proves that this event is a healthy and strong organism and that it is much needed by the market that supported and confidently received both its speakers and numerous audience.  The conference was attended by about 130 people among which were all the key producers of the TV and cinema-product in Ukraine as well as representatives of other segments of the film market of the country, guests from Russia, Bulgaria, and Great Britain. The event itself was covered, among others, by two national channels - Inter and ICTV.

The Conference gave the platform to a very special event very important for the film market of Ukraine: a first step was made on the way to establishing a new industry organization of film producers and market professionals. The Conference became a platform for the meeting of top executives of the three leading producers of film and TV-product in Ukraine – Viktor Mirsky (Film.UA), Victor Prikhodko («Pro-ТV») and Vlad Ryashin («Star Media»). In the course of the meeting a decision on establishing a new organization of TV and film producers of Ukraine was taken.

The Second Conference differed from the First one, because during the First Conference its organizers made an emphasis on the situation at the market in general, while the Second Conference was dedicated to the present-day economic conditions. The Conference was to become a visual aid on how to hold on in the circumstances of economic decline, a means to highlight the hidden possibilities in the time of the crisis, which may be not evident at the first glance, and the ways to take up the free niches.
The first opening speech at the Conference concerned statistics of the Ukrainian market for the last year and was delivered by the Russian company "Planet-Inform". For instance, in 2008 the Ukrainian cinema distribution market amounted to 3716 mln hryvnyas (7.2 mln out of which were generated by the Ukrainian movies) and 15.1 mln audience. During the part of the year 2009 that has passed (from December 1, 2008 to May 24, 2009) income of the Ukrainian cinema theaters reached 208.1 mln hryvnyas paid by almost 7.7 mln audience. There are 306 screens to watch the movies on in Ukraine.

The first section included speeches of representatives of companies from each of the four main spheres of cinema business: production, distribution, cinema studios and cinema theaters. Distributors were represented by deputy director general of the Russian company "Central Partnership Sales House" Andrey Radko. A famous Russian producer Sergey Chlyants could deliver speech on many topics due to his rich experience as an independent producer who knows much about cooperation with the state bodies and as a hired employee of a large cinema company Russian World Studios. But this time he was speaking as a distributor for in the crisis circumstances his new employer Russian World Studios risked to establish a new department of cinema production and cinema distribution. Dmytry Rudkovsky, director general of Fedor Bondarchuk's company Art Pictures Studio disclosed that his company was working on a production of Alexander Pushkin's poem "Onegin". It's worth mentioning that in this case the Art Pictures will be making a screen version of the Russian classical story in cooperation with the Hollywood major – the 20 Century Fox Studio.

Three speakers – Igor Stavchansky (director of the National Cinema Studio of Alexander Dovzhenko), Victor Prikhodko (general producer of the "Pro-TV" company) and David Synek (the "Gаtteo" cinema studio from Prague) – commented on the state of the cinema market, each from his own point of view.

One of the brightest moments of the conference was a panel discussion on the joint Russian and Ukrainian project - the "Love in the Big City" movie. Besides Alexander Bogutsky, the moderator of the first section of the conference and its investor, Lev Nicolau from the Russian company "Leopolis" that bought the movie script from the 95-Distrist Studio and actually produced the movie was present too together with the leading Ukrainian star of the movie and the co-writer of the script Vladimir Zelensky.  

 In general, the second and the third sections of the Conference were almost fully dedicated to the issue of new opportunities. Besides, all the new things are well forgotten old things. That's why many speakers pointed to well-known ways of optimization of functioning of the industry which are however overlooked. Thus, Lev Nicolau, general producer of the group of companies "Leopolis" (Russia) mentioned one opportunity that arises with the crisis. Lev said that with the crisis the number of viewers in Russia's cinema theaters increased. Their quantity (taking into account the enormity of Russia and specific ratio of urban and country dwellers) is comparable to the quantity of cinema theaters at the developed markets. According to Mr. Nicolau, it is a good piece of news for the Russian producers who doubt as to whether they should produce movies counting on selling them in the Motherland.  

Such conferences are always positive for they demonstrate the present-day tendencies at the market. This Conference marked out two interesting and absolutely opposite tendencies: while Hollywood is localizing its production, domestic (and Russian) companies make movies with an ultimate goal of selling them at the foreign markets. Vadim Sokolovsky, director of the cinema production and acquisitions of the Walt Disney Company CIS, the Russia based company that was specially established by the Hollywood major in Russia to produce the Russian movies for the Russian viewers, supported this observation. The first project of the company in Russia "The Book of Masters" is Russian in its nature, and the company doesn't plan to sell this movie to other states (expect for the CIS members). An opposite aim was set by the Russian company Russia Film Group (represented at the conference by Mikhail Rashodnikov, its vice-president). His company is producing the movie "Viy" with a view to distribute this movie at the foreign markets. 

A separate part of the conference was dedicated to a very general problem for the cinema production and the ways of its solving. However each of its participants gave concrete recommendations what and how the companies should act to make the production easier and better. The panel was attended by the director and script-writer Roman Balayan, Mikhail Raskhodnikov, vice-president of the Russian Film Group, and producer Sergey Chlyants.

A report of Ksenia Leontyeva from St.-Petersburg's «Nevafilm» is well worth mentioning. She talked about the opportunities offered by the digital cinema demonstrations – the technology that will take the place of traditional film.   

The conference ended on a patriotic and enthusiastic note by the speech of Oleg Malyshevsky from the "Yalta-Film" Studio. He said that Ukraine was an established cinema-producing state and that we were already shooting movies, so despite all the hardships mentioned above we would have bright future.

The conference uncovered a frequently overlooked fact that both Ukrainian and Russian markets are integrated between themselves and into the world cinema industry much better than even its own participants believe.  

We will be waiting for you at the Third Conference "Cinema Business in Ukraine" which will take place in spring of 2010!