Media Resources Management visited the Conference Forum "The Russian Cinema Industry of 2009"

The last week was very busy for the cinema industry of Russia as a series of events was arranged in Moscow.

Thus, on November 18-19 the Conference Forum of the cinema community "The Russian Cinema Industry of 2009" arranged by the "Universe-Consulting" company on the order of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation supported by the Union of the Cinematographs of Russia and the independent research company Movie Research took place. The representatives of Media Resources Management visited the event with a purpose of obtaining the newest information about the cinema market of Russia, establishing of partnership ties and representation of its clients' interests.

First of all worth mentioning is the interesting format of the event. The speakers were delivering their speeches in a specially designed zone while the audience had the possibility either to sit in the auditorium or to move freely about the other halls where the reports were broadcasted at the plasma TV screens.  Therefore, the most important goal was achieved. The arrangers managed to combine the platform for communication of the professionals and the possibility to get to know about anything new and listen to the reports and the panel discussions. We'd like to express our gratitude to the arrangers of the event for that.  

In the course of the two-day forum panel discussions and round tables were carried out and speeches of the leading players of the Russian cinema market were listened to. Among them were Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergey Lazaruk, Alexander Rubin, Dmytry Mykhneyev, Mikhail Churbanov, Dmytry Rydkovsky and many others.  The event determined four major problematic spheres that need to be worked on actively to develop the cinema industry. They include the state support of the cinema, the development of the cinema networks, the system of electronic tickets and the piracy.

Despite the fact that the Forum was carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation neither the Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeyev not his Vice-Minister Alexander Golutva were present there. As was mentioned in the lobby talks of the Forum, the official authorities might have ignored the event intentionally. It might be connected with a recent piece of news about the change of the mechanism of sharing of the state funds allocated for the support of the cinema industry. According to the new rules not the Ministry of Culture but the Fund for Support of the Russian Cinema will be distributing the money (see MBR no. 46).