The Russian Film Festival (RFF), organized by ROSKINO with support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation since 2020, has shown impressive performance, with the total number of viewers exceeding 1 million in 23 countries.
“We are very inspired by the Russian Film Festival’s success — Russian films and animation was watched by over one million people in various countries of the world! We plan to share the festival’s results with industry representatives, for whom these data (top countries, genre preferences) are vital for planning the geography of sales for their content. Growing interest in Russia as a tourist destination came as an unexpected bonus: many viewers want to visit our country after watching Russian films, as they said responding to our survey. Thus, Russian cinema weeks facilitate a shift in the perception of Russian content, as well as improving interest in the country and its tourist attractiveness. We have ambitious plans for 2022: we intend to make RFF an annual regular festival and, certainly, we are already working on expanding its geography and lineup. I am confident that RFF will lead to growth in the number of Russian cinema fans and to the strengthening of cultural ties between countries.” Evgenia Markova, CEO of ROSKINO commented.
Markova said that in 2020, RFF became the first Russian online project targeting wide international audiences. The festival was successfully held in Australia, Mexico, Spain and Brazil in collaboration with local online platforms. In 2021, the Russian Film Festival substantially expanded its geography, covering 22 countries and 16 languages, and saw significant interest in contemporary Russian cinema from audiences in the world’s various regions. This year, over 850,000 people watched RFF films. The top 3 of most watched films in 2020-2021 features Anna Parmas’ comedy Another Woman, Klim Shipenko’s crime drama Тext and Valery Todorovsky’s ballet drama The Bolshoi. Markova went on to explain that the most impressive results this year were reported by RFF in India: in six weeks, nearly 700,000 viewers watched Russian films on the platform HOTSTAR + DISNEY. The champion was Anna Parmas’ comedy Another Woman, which attracted nearly one half of all the views. Incidentally, this comedy was also the champion in Israel. In India, the top 3 also featured the melodramas Ice 2 by Oleg Trofimov and Jetlag by Mikhail Idov.
Markova said that the Russian Film Festival 2021 kicked off in June on the Latin American VOD platform Qubit in three countries – Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – and continued in Kazakhstan on the basis of the online streaming service Okko, becoming the first online event for Russian cinema on the CIS territory. Later, contemporary Russian films were screened on South Korea’s largest local platform Homechoice and subsequently in India, Azerbaijan (on Kinopoisk HD), Israel and China, as part of the Beijing International Festival. At Beijing, an RFF film, the war drama A Siege Diary was awarded: Andrei Zaitsev collected the best director’s award. Markova added that this year, the RFF was screened not only online on local VOD platforms, but also as part of physical events. One of the Russian Film Festival’s achievements in 2021 was the integration of RFF into major international film festivals. Russian films and animation was screened at festivals in France, Poland, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Mongolia. In Kyrgyzstan, RFF was for the first time held as an independent offline festival. Markova went on to point out that Russian Film Festival films were screened this year in Great Britain, on the British Film Institute’s platform, BFI Player, with films by female directors attracting special attention. Opinion leaders who took part in the RFF project in various countries were popular film industry personalities. In India, it was actor Mithun Chakraborty and in Argentina — actress and singer Natalia Oreiro. The Russian Film Festival was organized with support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation in all the countries, and in some, support was also provided by the Cinema Fund, Rossotrudnichestvo, the Moscow City Tourism Committee, Discover Moscow and the festival’s media partner, Russia Beyond.
Markova explained that when it comes to viewers’ genre preferences, comedies are far ahead (49%), followed by dramas (26%) and sports films (17%). It was also noted that pictures targeting mass audiences were more popular in online screenings, while auteur films attracted more interest at offline festivals. Markova added that the Russian Film Festival improved people’s attitudes towards Russia and Russian content. The findings of a survey conducted in Latin American countries testify to that. 25% of the respondents said they had begun to think better about Russian content and 30% said their attitudes about Russia had improved. 25% said they would like to visit Russia, thanks to the festival.
Markova explained that the Russia Film Festival 2021’s lineup was made with preferences of foreign viewers in mind. The viewers were offered a selection of recent features, documentaries and animated films, which collected awards at Russian and foreign festivals, in the original language, with subtitles. Animated films were screened in a dubbed version for each country. Overall, RFF spoke in 16 languages, and 52 films have been screened since the launch in November 2020.
Markova said that among the participants of the Russian Film Festival in 2020-2021 were the features Dear Comrades! by Andrei Konchalovsky, Another Woman by Anna Parmas, A Frenchman by Andrei Smirnov, Тext by Klim Shipenko, Ice 2 by Oleg Trofimov, Doctor Liza by Oksana Karas, Silver Skates by Mikhail Lokshin, On the Edge by Eduard Bordukov, The North Wind by Renata Litvinova, The Whaler Boy by Filipp Yuryev, A Man from Podolsk by Semen Serzin, Sputnik by Yegor Abramenko, Маshа by Anastasia Palchikova, A Siege Diary by Andrei Zaitsev, The Conscience by Alexei Kozlov and The Last Dear Bulgary by Alexei Fedorchenko.
Markova said in addition, foreign audiences watched the animated films The Snow Queen and Space Dogs: Tropical Adventure and the animated series Little Tiaras and Kids-E-Cats. For the first time, in 2021, the lineup also featured documentaries – Kamchatka Bears. Life Begins by Irina Zhuravleva and Vladislav Grishin, Voy by Maksim Arbugayev and Stanislavsky. Lust for Life by Julia Bobkova.
“I am confident that this project was much more successful than all previous efforts aimed at promoting Russian cinema in South Korea, regardless of the number of views. I will suggest that my platform acquire 2-3 films to continue long-term cooperation between ROSKINO and Home Choice.” Jin Jung, content acquisition and programming manager at Home Choice (South Korea) commented.
“The opportunity to bring a selection of contemporary Russian cinema to BFI Player subscribers was too good to miss and we welcome this exciting new partnership with ROSKINO. We have previously brought French, Polish and African films to the programme in a similar festival format, all of which had strong engagement with existing subscribers while also delivering new audiences. Our aim with BFI Player is to create the very best film subscription offer, with our library of contemporary, cult and classic films enhanced by new collections of work like the Russian Film Festival, that film fans in the UK may otherwise not be able to see.” Stuart Brown, BFI Head of Programme and Acquisitions commented.
“The numbers are really impressive! No other international collaboration has shown such a high performance for the entire period of the platform’s existence. The festival’s films took seventh place in our rating. For your understanding, over the last few years, we have held over 60 various festivals, and it took those which are at the top of the rating up to two years to gain such a popularity with viewers! We are very pleased with the outcome and we hope for further cooperation with you!” Dilson Neto, programming director of SPCINE (Brazil) commented.
“We’re truly delighted to hold the second edition of the Russian Film Festival and we’re very grateful to ROSKINO for trusting us again with this wonderful event, even more, just after releasing near 40 classic Soviet films remasterized by Mosfilm. It is clear that Russia is one of the epicenters of European cinema, classic and contemporary. This festival is the best proof of it.” Joan Sala, programmer of Filmin commented.
