LETTER FROM MOSCOW
It is a miracle the likes of which only cinema can produce: Mavka, a fantastic short film released in 2021, is back in cinemas across Russia, except that Anastasia Ledkova's film is now 129 minutes long, or two hours and nine minutes. There is no more suspense. Mavka is a cover behind which lies the global phenomenon Barbie. Audiences who buy a ticket for Mavka are entitled to a "pre-screening service," a "free" screening of Greta Gerwig's feature film: at 114 minutes plus 15 minutes, the amount is just right.
It just requires a bit of mental gymnastics, especially as not all cinemas have chosen the same short film. If you want to see Oppenheimer, the other hit of the moment, you will usually have to look for Doubak, a cartoon that largely steers clear of probing into the atomic bomb.
Russia has a long history of film piracy. In the 1990s and 2000s, Moscow's Gorbushka market offered DVDs compiling up to 10 trendy films on a single disc, for a ridiculously low price. Later, streaming services and internet platforms took over. But cinemas had never taken the plunge, until the war in Ukraine.
After the Russian army invaded the country, American studios announced their departure from the Russian market – as did publishing houses, producers of educational podcasts, etc. At first, cinemas came close to disaster: an ever-hungry public with little or nothing to show it. As many as 41% of Russia's 5,700 cinemas were expected to close, at least temporarily, by 2022, and some would never recover.
Then piracy became the obvious solution. The beginning was chaotic, with a variety of more or less subtle methods: distributing pirated versions found on the internet, simply changing the name of the film, or buying it in neighboring countries with little regard for the environment (notably those of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an intergovernmental organization created after the dissolution of the USSR, which distribute Russian-language versions).
Avatar 2: The Way of Water, a huge worldwide success at the end of 2022, stabilized things, with the now tried-and-tested technique of the short film. It is not fooling anyone, but distributors are at least trying to pretend that they're not breaking the laws – those of production countries as well as those of Russia, which prohibit piracy.
In reality, the authorities turn a blind eye. A bill was even tabled in the Duma in August, aimed at creating a "compulsory licensing mechanism" for films "from unfriendly countries" (mainly Western). In other words, legalizing piracy. Nonetheless, the project has remained on the drawing board, and the government is still refusing to take the plunge.
You have 48.62% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.