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The Legendary Lenfilm Movie Studio May Give Way To Offices
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by loscuadernosdejulia | August 16, 2011 at 12:36 am
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The crisis that has befallen Russian cinema since the late 1980s is about to get deeper. Certain secret documents have surfaced that indicate that Lenfilm, Russia's oldest and world-famous film studio, is now fully in private hands. The hands belong to the businessman Vladimir Yevtushenkov who reportedly plans to move the studio grounds to the suburbs and build offices and elite apartments in their place instead.
Although the first Russian movies appeared well before Lenfilm had appeared, they were produced privately and catered primarily to the bourgeois interests. The appearance of Lenfilm was elevating Russian cinema to a totally new level. According to Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Soviet State in its first years, cinema was the most accessible art medium and, as such, it was the medium for the new era - that of Revolution and Communism. The mass popularity of movies only added to Cinema's now leading position among other forms of art.
Lenfilm Studio was founded in Petrograd in 1918. Among the films known to the Western public that were shot at Lenfilm are Hamlet (1964) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson (1979). Other classical Russian and Soviet films include The Life of Klim Samgin (1987) after the novel by Maxim Gorky and numerous adaptations of Lope de Vega, Shakespeare, and Imre Kalman's operettas.
In 2008 it was agreed to create a consortium of Russian film studios, which was to include Mosfilm, Lenfilm and Gorky Youth Film Studio. However, it was known that Lenfilm's owners did not fancy the idea of amalgamating with other studios.
It remains to be seen what fate awaits the legendary movie grounds. Two of the leading Petersburg directors, with world-famous names, Alexander Sokurov and Alexei German the Elder have already addressed the Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin to help protect Lenfilm.
Via Russia-InfoCentre.
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loscuadernosdejulia
Moscow, Russia
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 05:57 on August 16th, 2011
Interesting loscuadernosdejulia ! Just wondering if Russia allows any type of political sensitive films ? Does Russia allow any and all films or is there some government censorship ?
at 13:32 on August 16th, 2011
I'd say that even in the Soviet era it was possible to make just about any film. It may not have been released, but it could be shot. There is a film called Commissar, about a female soldier who falls pregnant and stays with the Jewish family and then eventually leaves her child with the Jews. It is a kind of sensitive topic, but the film was still made.
These days the situation is such that you can make just about any film, as long as you have money and guts. The situation is directly opposite: there is no censorship, as a result the notion of quality in cinema has diluted a lot.
at 16:57 on August 16th, 2011
loscuadernosdejulia, My thoughts from what I've heard, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is the government in Russia is being run with increasingly strong arm tactics. That democratic principles are being systematically taken away. And most disturbing your free press and media is being censored with several high level prominent journalist assassinated or disappearing. I can't imagine that your movie industry has been left untouched by all this in being uncensored.
These two below Wikipedia links gives a rather chilling account of severe censorship and human rights abuse that has been taking place in Russia media and press over the last 20 or so years.
( Human rights in Russia )
High concern was caused by murders of opposition lawmakers and journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Schekochikhin, Galina Starovoitova, Sergei Yushenkov, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, and journalist Anastasia Baburova, as well as imprisonments of human rights defenders, scientists, and journalists like Mikhail Trepashkin, Igor Sutyagin, and Valentin Danilov.
Also see:
( Freedom of the press in the Russian Federation )
Reporters Without Borders put Russia at 147th place in the World Press Freedom Index (from a list of 168 countries). According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 journalists have been killed in Russia for their professional activity, since 1992 (as of January 15, 2008). Thirty were killed during President Boris Yeltsin's reign, and the rest were killed under the former president Vladimir Putin. According to the Glasnost Defence Foundation, there were 8 cases of suspicious deaths of journalists in 2007, as well as 75 assaults on journalists, and 11 attacks on editorial offices. In 2006, the figures were 9 deaths, 69 assaults, and 12 attacks on offices. In 2005, the list of all cases included 7 deaths, 63 assaults, 12 attacks on editorial offices, 23 incidents of censorship, 42 criminal prosecutions, 11 illegal layoffs, 47 cases of detention by militsiya, 382 lawsuits, 233 cases of obstruction, 23 closings of editorial offices, 10 evictions, 28 confiscations of printed production, 23 cases of stopping broadcasting, 38 refusals to distribute or print production, 25 acts of intimidation, and 344 other violations of Russian journalist's rights.
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, famous for her criticisms of Russia's actions in Chechnya, and the pro-Kremlin Chechya government, was assassinated in Moscow. Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky believes that the murders of writers Yuri Shchekochikhin (author of Slaves of KGB), Anna Politkovskaya, and Aleksander Litvinenko show that the FSB has returned to the practice of political assassinations, practised in the past by the Thirteenth KGB Department.
Opposition journalist Yevgenia Albats in interview with Eduard Steiner has claimed: "Today the directors of the television channels and the newspapers are invited every Thursday into the Kremlin office of the deputy head of administration, Vladislav Surkov to learn what news should be presented, and where. Journalists are bought with enormous salaries."
at 01:11 on August 17th, 2011
Well, I'd still say that Journalism and Cinema are two different things. Yes, you are welcome to make just about any film, but to promote it and to have it succeed will be no small feat. Effectively, censorship takes the form of economic/financial inability to make your work accessible to the masses. On the other hand, connections in the film industry will also decide whether or not you will have work, this goes for both directors and actors. Not a particularly strange thing to contemplate, but there is a well-known saying, coming from the great actress Faina Ranevskaya: "against whom are we friends today?" This was a reflection on the state of people relations in the theatre, and needless to say, it persists both in the theatre and in the film industry. At the moment, following the collapse of the Soviet system, the situation in the film industry may be somewhat similar to the early Hollywood with its concurring studios.
As for Russia's free speech, there is Social Media these days, so if you have an account in LiveJournal, go ahead and say anything you want. Yes, you may invite a special attention to your journal, but I don't think that U.S. political bloggers are not attended by the FBI. I think we need to discern between the State's attention to what its citizens are saying publicly, which is fine, as far as I am concerned; and between the State's oppression of these citizens.
Also, forgive me, but I think some of Russian "free speech" proponents have idealistically high hopes for the West's support of Russian democratic efforts. Seriously, as if Russian democracy really WERE more important to either USA or UK than the U.S. economy, or the British social situation. Instead of painting the whole situation in Russia pitch black, I'd rather have them willingly and without any second thoughts dedicate their effort to promote every little good there is today in Russia. In the end, what we focus on is what we get. The longer Russia talks about crime, corruption and ignores the springs of good initiatives, the longer we'll be discussing the country's barbarism, oppression and lack of democracy.