The war in Ukraine was the focus of this week’s Berlin Film Festival, which is being held for the first time since Russia’s massive invasion last year.
At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared via satellite to encourage festival-goers not to “keep silent” about Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression. Sean Penn, who premiered his documentary portrait of Ukraine’s leader Superpower this week, lashed out at Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “war criminal” and a “creepy little thug.”
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Moral outrage has not been in short supply since the war began, as the global film community — in a display of near-unanimous condemnation of the Kremlin’s criminal onslaught — has rallied behind the Ukrainian war effort. But many US and foreign companies are quietly continuing to do business with Putin’s pariah state, or have resumed doing business that was suspended after the war began.
Though Hollywood tent poles were pulled from Russian cinemas after the invasion of Ukraine, more than 140 US films were released in Russia last year after the war broke out, according to data from the Russian Cinema Fund, which tracks ticket sales at the country’s cinema operators.
After teetering on the brink of collapse following last winter’s Hollywood exit, Russia’s box office has nonetheless got off to its best start ever, with January being recorded as the highest-grossing month ever for the exhibitions industry.
Guy Ritchie’s spy action comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, which is distributed worldwide by STXinternational, and the action thriller Plane (pictured above), which is distributed internationally by Lionsgate, are currently in the top 10 grossing films of 2023 in Russia, according to data from Box Office Mojo. More than 130 international titles are planned for release this year so far.
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A representative from STXinternational declined to comment on the story. When asked about the Russian releases of Lionsgate titles like Plane and Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez, a company spokesman declined to comment, although a person familiar with the matter told Variety that the company is looking at new business in Russia has paused but continues to do so respect treaties signed before the war with organizations not subject to international sanctions.
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” grossed more than $4.3 million in Russian cinemas last year.
However, other companies have struck new deals since the beginning of the war. A major US distribution agency claimed it does not do business with “Russia-based companies”, but acknowledged that films sold to third-party distributors could end up in Russian cinemas. FilmNation, on the other hand, whose “Three Thousand Years of Longing” grossed more than $4.3 million at the Russian box office last year, according to Box Office Mojo, says it lets its content producers decide whether to release their films in the country want .
Despite a series of sanctions imposed by the US and Europe on Russian oligarchs and companies linked to the Kremlin, there are no laws prohibiting US companies from doing business with Russian companies that are not on the sanctions list. Many leading Russian distributors have established or already had bases elsewhere in Europe, allowing them to circumvent a freeze on international payments by Russian banks when signing foreign contracts.
The Berlin Film Festival and European Film Market followed in the footsteps of Cannes, Venice and other festivals by allowing independent Russian filmmakers and industry representatives to attend this year’s event, while excluding those associated with the Putin regime or it support.
Top Russian distributors have booked their tickets to Berlin and at least half a dozen companies are meeting outside of the official EFM venues. Despite public magnanimity, “more and more companies that haven’t worked with Russian distributors seem to have decided to start over,” said Daniel Goroshko of art-house distributor A-One, which awarded Ruben Ostlund’s Palme d’Or at Cannes “Triangle of Sadness was released in Russian cinemas last December.
Among the European sales representatives contacted by Variety, several said they categorically refuse to work with Russian buyers, although others are still willing to deal with long-term clients who have no ties to the Putin regime.
French sellers, meanwhile, were not shying away from their Russian deals: last month a group of French sales agents joined forces to cover hotel expenses for Russian distributors attending Unifrance’s rendez-vous in Paris.
With 2.6 million admissions in 2022, Russia was the third largest international market for French films, according to Unifrance, after ranking in the top two in each of the previous three years. Pathé’s swashbuckling epic The Three Musketeers is among high-profile French titles slated for release in Russia in the coming months.
Pathé’s The Three Musketeers is coming to Russian cinemas.
A French trade rep, who asked not to be named, defended the industry’s position to Variety, noting that a total ban on foreign films would only serve to protect Russia – including the many Russian citizens who oppose the war in Ukraine to protest – to further isolate from the international community. “This is what Putin wants,” they said.
In fact, the Russian industry has found no shortage of willing partners eager to do business with the world’s sixth largest cinema market in 2021.
In India, which continues to buy oil from Russia and has staunchly refused to denounce the war in Ukraine, Russian companies were represented at the film bazaar in Goa last November, where film promotion organization Roskino and the Moscow Export Center hosted two pavilions Russian executives want local partners court. (Both state-supported institutions are excluded from the European Film Market.)
Meanwhile, leading production and distribution company Central Partnership, owned by Gazprom-Media, recently struck a deal with leading distributor Four Star Films to bring a number of Russian titles to theaters in the Middle East and North Africa bring. Vadim Vereschagin, CEO of Central Partnership, said the company is also bringing its “whole table” to Latin America, where there is a strong appetite for Russian action thrillers and other genre films.
That much of the global film industry continues to do business with Putin’s Russia comes as a definite relief from last year’s public pose. Despite this, many filmmakers insist that with so much at stake, they will not let go of their anti-Russian stance.
Sean Penn is in Berlin to promote his pro-Ukrainian documentary Superpower.
Asked by Variety in Berlin how he would feel about his uncompromisingly pro-Ukrainian “superpower” hitting Russian cinemas, Penn was defiant, claiming that “there’s no place for anything to do with it [a single] rubles” changes hands in the global entertainment industry.
Ukrainian producer and distributor Denis Ivanov echoed this sentiment, drawing a direct line between the deals Russian film companies are making with Hollywood and other foreign partners and the guns ravaging his country.
Noting that Russian taxpayers are directly funding the war effort, Ivanov called for a blanket ban on all dealings with Russian industry, insisting it was the only way “to stop the massive killing in Ukraine.”
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