In 2018, nearly a quarter of all movies shown in Russia will be domestically made, the Culture Ministry said in a five-year development plan published on its website.
On May 26, President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue state support of the domestic film industry but called on filmmakers to produce movies that promote key social, cultural, patriotic and moral values. State financing of the domestic movie industry has grown from 529 million rubles ($17 million) in 2000 to over 6.6 billion rubles ($211 million) this year.
In its plan, drafted and published on the order of Putin, the Culture Ministry said that between 2013 and 2018, it aimed “to ensure equal access to movie industry works for all citizens nationwide, to preserve the domestic movie heritage [and] to develop new technologies of movie production and screening,” among other things.
The ministry pledged to increase the share of Russian films in cinemas from the current 17.5 percent to 22.5 percent in 2018. The number of movies annually made by Russian filmmakers is to grow by half, from 60 in 2013 to 90 in 2018.
The ministry also plans to increase the number of movie screens in Russia by 45 percent in eight years, from 3,100 in 2013 to 4,500 in 2018.
On May 7, Putin gave all ministers one month to draft plans for their work in the coming five years. A month later, on June 7, he criticized the plans for containing “too many general words and vague statements,” and ordered them to be improved.
