2023-09-27 13:10:00
DW: What happened between Russia and the Oscars?
Anton Dolin: The Oscar nomination mechanism today is as follows: each country nominates its film for an international award. It is impossible to imagine that today Russia, all sorts of officials like Nikita Mikhalkov, will put forward something not regulated by military censorship and government policy. It is also unimaginable that they could nominate something not produced by the state, without the logo of the Ministry of Culture. On the other hand, it is impossible to imagine that a film made by the Russian state would be accepted for consideration by the Oscars. This is a fundamental discrepancy.
The demarche against Oscar continues for the second year. In 2022, the Russian committee said it would not put forward anything. This year he announced that he was suspending activities.
This is a situation about a fox and grapes. The fox announces that she will not eat the grapes because they are green, but in fact she has short legs and cannot reach the grapes. Our cinema today has short legs for the Oscars.
If there had been no war, they would probably have nominated the first film shot in space. The painting “Challenge”. But today it is easier to refuse to participate in the competition for the award than to nominate a film and receive a humiliating ignore in response. It will simply not be accepted for consideration.
– Director Vitaly Mansky believes that Oscar should have been the first to announce a boycott of Russia and stop propaganda rhetoric.
– The American Film Academy is made up of people who, of course, are not alien to politics. But one can show one’s attitude much more expressively by how the ceremony is organized, which films are nominated and which ones become laureates. For the second year in a row, guests of the ceremony supported Ukraine verbally or through the colors of their clothes; the documentary film “Navalny”, about the most famous Russian political prisoner, received an Oscar. This expresses Oscar’s position much more clearly than political statements.
In addition, note that Iran has won the Oscar twice in the last decade. I think that America treats this state no better than Russia. But they show and award Iranian films. The position of the American Academy is quite simple: they reward films that correspond to their aesthetic and ethical guidelines. If the official Russian Oscar committee cannot offer such, then they simply do not exist for the Academy.
In 2022, the statuette for best documentary went to “Navalny.” It went to Yulia Navalnaya Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
– Unlike Iran, Russia has not received an Oscar over the past 10 years, and was nominated only twice – with Zvyagintsev’s films “Loveless” and “Leviathan.”
– I am convinced that the number of Russian films that received Oscars has nothing to do with politics. They simply did not meet the Oscar criteria, which are constantly changing and are not easily calculated.
– The absolute leaders of the Russian box office this year were the films “Cheburashka” with receipts of 7 billion rubles and “Challenge” – 2 billion. How does this characterize the Russian film market?
– This suggests that in Russia there is no longer Hollywood, which left within a matter of days after the start of the war. Someday after the war, Hollywood will return – sooner rather than later – after all, Russia is a huge country with a huge market, and American capitalists are pragmatic people. Then people will turn to watching Spider-Man 5 and Avengers 7 again. Those few European and even fewer Asian films that make it to Russian distribution are in the auteur cinema or art-house segment, and in any case they could not be box office leaders.
– The film “Bullfinch,” one of the few serious Russian releases this year, failed at the box office, grossing 56 million at a cost of 300 million rubles.
– This is an auteur cinema, serious, problematic, tragic, which will never overcome “Cheburashka” in any country in the world. For a film to be dramatic and attract an audience, it must be a blockbuster with big stars. For example, “Oppenheimer”. Although his case of commercial success is out of the ordinary. In America, France and Indonesia, as well as in Russia, people go to the cinema to have fun.
– Could there be any positive aspects in the departure of Hollywood? As cinema officials often repeated, but now they will start watching Russian cinema…
– The Russian film market began to take shape 20 years ago thanks to the arrival of Hollywood in our country. People began to understand why they should waste time and money on cinemas. Accordingly, more cinemas began to be built in cities. People are used to going to the cinema. And then more Russian films began to appear, domestic blockbusters, “Russian Hollywood,” began to be created. Now many people have stopped going to the cinema altogether, and some watch pirated copies of films on the Internet. Even if we accept that the industry has profited from the great success of “Cheburashka” and “The Challenge” (although there is a very large gap between them), maybe at some short stage it will work. But people want variety, and cinemas continue to close, lack audiences, and beg the state to provide them with subsidies.
– In the absence of world novelties, is there a provincialization of the audience’s taste?
– Can Indian or Chinese cinema be called provincial? Only if you are used to considering New York or Los Angeles the center of the world. Meanwhile, more people live in India and China. This industry is simply more self-sufficient. Hollywood makes films for the world, but India makes films for the domestic market, just like China. The USSR did the same, but it was not provincial cinema, it collected prizes all over the world and made money from its huge audience. Now the Russian market is also becoming a closed system, only with much less production, finances, and audience.
– How much did the number of people leaving the industry affect the quality of Russian cinema? Have so many of them really left? Or were it mostly the stars who were able to leave?
– Stars are very important for the film industry. In auteur cinema, famous directors are always the driving force behind the process. Most of them have now really either left or gone silent. Boris Khlebnikov directed “The Bullfinch”, but this is rather an exception. The film, as you can see, was a failure. To be fair, it must be said that even before the war, films made by famous directors could often fail at the box office, this is not the first time.
Every talented, bright director who stops making films and goes abroad is a big blow for the country. Imagine Lars von Trier stops filming and leaves Denmark. Or Aki Kaurismaki leaves Finland. This year the Frenchwoman Justine Trieu won in Cannes – all of France is rejoicing, and this is very important for people.
– You recently returned from Venice, what is happening now at the European film market? Were any outstanding paintings presented? Are European issues reflected in Russian cinema?
– “The Poor Miserables” by Yorgos Lanthimos, the winning film is an acutely feminist film, quite revolutionary, with a completely new approach to emancipation and sexuality in cinema. She talks about the emancipation of women through bodily and sexual freedom.
The films “Green Border” by Polish woman Agnieszka Holland and “I Am Captain” by Italian Matteo Garrone are the most vivid films about migrants and refugees, calling for empathy, to discover and destroy internal racism in oneself.
The film “Evil Does Not Exist” by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi is dedicated to the environmental theme and the fight against mega-corporations that are taking over the few virgin corners of nature where people are still in contact with nature.
Today, it is almost impossible to imagine in Russia a big and bright film about ecology, feminism or refugees that can interest the audience. Just two years ago this was quite possible. Today Russia and Europe have become different worlds, judging by what kind of art is possible and in demand in the country. And this says nothing about the audience’s preferences. This speaks to the regulation and control of art by the state. If it weren’t for him, I’m sure that talented Russian directors and screenwriters would be preoccupied with similar problems.
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