During a meeting of the Council of Culture, Vladimir Putin called on the head of the Ministry of Culture, Olga Lyubimova, to accelerate the implementation of the quota system on foreign cinema.
The issue of foreign cinema quotas was raised at the meeting by director Nikita Mikhalkov, who complained about the delay in the document that should regulate this. Putin directed the question to Lyubimova, who explained that this was a “technically complex” procedure. She said: “We discussed how to regulate the quota system in our country from a legal point of view, and how to make it legitimate – from the point of view of rights holders, distributors and cinema chains.”
In this dialogue, Putin mentioned China and France, noting that everything is “strictly regulated” there, and said that he spoke with Xi Jinping, who offered to produce joint films.
The President of the People’s Republic of China, who has very great powers, did not say: “Well, tomorrow we will change something.” No, everything there is strictly regulated. Well, why do we keep our mouths open? Ideologically, we skip some completely stupid things that we don’t need, and we don’t financially support our manufacturer. I’m not saying that we need to ban something, but to build a system where many things are actually supported through one channel or another, actually supported – well, why are we going to subsidize foreign film production?
After that, Putin asked Lyubimova to “implement” the document regulating the quotas as quickly as possible.
At the meeting, Putin also spoke about the problem of authors’ heirs preventing Russian theaters from showing certain works. Actor Vladimir Mashkov told the president about this. He added: “This is not only related to the possible distortion of the work or the size of the wage. The refusal comes in the form of: ‘I do not think it is right to grant rights in the current situation.’”
Putin agreed that heirs “sometimes abuse rights,” and said, “We need to carefully consider the regulatory framework and respond accordingly, in a civilized way, of course.”
But we definitely need to take absolute measures to protect the interests of society. People live their own lives, have their own interests, and are not authors themselves. Yes, they have some rights, and we should definitely treat this with respect. But, as I said and certainly put it, they don’t even care about not showing many works in other countries. This will simply lead to these authors being forgotten, that’s all.