Russian Industry at China’s Shanghai Film Festival
“We are building our work with China, interacting with the professional industrial community and wider audiences,” says CEO of Russia’s state-backed film promotion body Roskino.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto film festivals and markets all imposed bans on Russian delegations and film companies connected to the Putin government.
The events only made an exception for individual Russian artists and filmmakers, who continue to be welcomed, provided they don’t have state affiliation.
At the 2023 SIFF Market, a trade event that runs in tandem with the festival, and where new international movies are bought and sold, Roskino, Russia’s state-backed film promotion body, will organize a booth titled “Russian Content Worldwide,” where 18 companies will present some 75 new Russian films. It will be Russia’s largest presence at the Shanghai movie market to date.
“Our first, and such large-scale, offline presence at the SIFF Market will significantly strengthen relations between Russian film and animation companies and Chinese and other Asian market participants,” said Ekaterina Naumova, CEO of Roskino, in official promotional release seen ahead of the event.
Snow Queen Franchise
Russian films have not had much presence at China’s commercial box office. One exception is Russia’s popular animated Snow Queen franchise, produced by Voronezh Animation Studio. The Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice earned $11.5 million in China in 2018, and The Snow Queen 4: Mirrorlands took in $3.3 million in 2019. The fifth film in the franchise, The Snow Queen & The Princess, which released in Russia in February, will be one of the new titles on offer at the Russian booth in Shanghai.
Other titles shopped in China will include the fishing-ship disaster film Three Minutes of Silence, the period detective movie In the Moscow Slums, and the action-comedy The Silver Spoon Goes South, among many others. The SIFF Market runs June 10-12 at the Longemont Shanghai Hotel.
Some have begun to question how effective the major Western film festival markets’ boycott of Russia has been — beyond signaling solidarity with Ukraine. The major Hollywood movie studios have maintained similar boycotts on distributing their blockbusters to Russia, a move that has unquestionably deprived Russian cinemas of millions in potential ticket sales. But U.S. and European indie studios — the types of companies that typically do business at film festival markets — never stopped selling movies into the lucrative Russian market.
The indies have only become quieter and more covert about their Russia dealings. The list of recent indie flicks that have secured a Russian release includes STX’s Guy Ritchie war movie The Covenant, XYZ Films’ Berlin Film Festival favorite BlackBerry, Goodfellas’ Iranian thriller Holy Spider, and the surprise exploitation hit Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey from Premiere Entertainment.
