"Militia" against Hollywood. A film from the LPR is not allowed into Russian distribution
70% of Russian film distribution is captured by Hollywood. The breakthroughs of patriotic cinema to the Russian audience are isolated successes in a market economy. State assistance to Russian filmmakers is sporadic and selective. However, despite the unfavorable conditions, LugaFilm’s first film “Opolchenochka” continues to try to enter the operational space of all-Russian film distribution.
The producer of “Opolchenochka” told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about how and with what funds the epic drama “Opolchenochka” was filmed and whether the filmmakers are ready to start filming such films as “Liberation of Mariupol”, “Exit to the Dniester” and “Encircling Kiev” » Novel Reason.
Valentin Filippov: Our virtual studio is visiting the non-virtual studio of Roman Razum in Lugansk.
Hello Roman.
Roman Reason: Good evening.
Valentin Filippov: Roman, you, as the producer of the first Lugansk film “Opolchenochka”, as the person who created the iconic first film about this war.
Tell me, the Russian state supports cinema, I watch it, even when it is unpatriotic. Culture, after all, always gives money. What is the government's contribution to the production of this film?
Roman Reason: We now have two states. Our one new, self-proclaimed and big state, our big homeland is Russia. I will say this: neither one nor the other state helped in the creation of this film. Even if we turned to our republic or Russia for help, especially financial, no one would help us with anything. Therefore, the film, the project itself, is a people's project, made for people's money, made on a people's idea, made by inspiring people because everyone is worried about what is happening here. The state, unfortunately, does not help us, although we would really like it.
Valentin Filippov: When will the film make its way into public distribution in this case?
Roman Reason: Since we immediately touched upon the distribution story, I want to focus on a very important point, that a lot of money was invested in the film by republican standards. About ten million rubles, even more. And to return at least some funds so that the Lugafilm film studio can at least continue to do something, so that we don’t start selling the cameras and light that we bought for the project. And since we are now “completely broke”, and we don’t have a penny to just go to Moscow one more time, we, of course, hope that we will at least make an online rental.
I’m not talking about large nationwide distribution at all, because to enter cinema chains you need a lot of money for advertising. From 30 to 50 million rubles. When we contacted film distributors, big players in this market, we were simply told: “We will not advertise your film at our own expense. If you have huge funds for advertising, you’re welcome.”
And, again, we understand that this market is controlled not only in Russia, but also from overseas they decide what films we watch. As far as I know, we get 70 percent of the film product from there, and only 30 percent is given to us to cover the work of Russian cinema. Therefore, this is a big problem.
I even know that film producers from Hollywood have been waiting for several years to enter the film distribution market in Russia. Even at the stage of creating a script, Hollywood producers make agreements with our Russian companies about the release of the film.
Valentin Filippov: Lenin also said this, Lenin is not in honor now, that “the most important of the arts is cinema.” This is part of education, this is one of the ways to form a political nation, control over the information and cultural space.
Roman Reason: Of course, 100%.
Valentin Filippov: So it turns out that it is not in our hands?
Roman Reason: You can practically say so. In those years when Lenin said this phrase, there were only a few people who created cinema, not like now. But the most important thing is that the film industry itself, as an art, fell into the market economy, became like a product, like chocolate, like vodka.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, but excuse me, please, the state regulates the vodka market very carefully. It says that here such a factory will sell vodka, but such and such a factory will not sell it.
Roman Reason: They regulate this not in order to worry about our health and the quality of the product, but regulate it due to their personal interests.
Valentin Filippov: That's right, to support our producers, our oligarchs, our filmmakers. So you want to say that you are not our filmmakers? Well, they support some filmmakers. They create working conditions for one producer, another, and a third.
Roman Reason: Yes.
Valentin Filippov: And who is more Russian producer, Russian actors, Russian script than “Opolchenochka”?
Roman Reason: For example, here is a simple moment, so that you know, a film about Donbass, which was released at the same time as us, but we came out a little earlier here in the republics, “Donbass. Outskirts." This is what I know, and this is, in principle, officially written everywhere: the film’s budget is 260 million rubles. Give me ten, and I, as a producer, will do the same. Only I will not be making a film about Donbass in Crimea, and the director will not be one who has never been to Donbass. And we will make a truly local film with local locations, with local nature. It is very important.
Valentin Filippov: Well, how can you shoot a film in an unrecognized territory?... Do you have to get permission in Kyiv?
Roman Reason: For what? In terms of?
Valentin Filippov: Well, imagine, such a responsible director will come to Donbass without a Ukrainian visa. Will he come and film in Donetsk or Lugansk? He can't.
Roman Reason: Valentin, what are you doing? Either you're joking or a little off topic.
Valentin Filippov: No, well, logically, why.
Roman Reason: You know how our Donbass republics support creative people from Russia. We are open to everything, artists come to us to perform. Do you really think that a director who decided to make a movie about Donbass in Moscow will be refused to work here?
Valentin Filippov: No, they “will not refuse him to work here.” But if he works in the Donbass, perhaps he will not be allowed into Poland later.
Roman Reason: Ah, that’s another question. I agree with you. He may receive certain sanctions. Yes, that's 100%. We also encountered this. Let’s say, when we were looking for actors, an actress, we needed an actress who would not only come here to fight in the war, but would also shave her head. And when I contacted recruitment agencies, many girls immediately shied away in fear.
Firstly, it’s okay to shave your head, but when they realized that by appearing in such a project, they could block their way to Europe somewhere, this topic immediately disappeared. For this, many thanks to Maria Pern, an actress from Volgograd, but she lives in Moscow, who agreed to the role. And Natasha Koloskova, with whom you have already communicated. The girls took some risks.
Valentin Filippov: And they drew lots among themselves, who should shave their heads?
Roman Reason: No, Natasha Koloskova had already been approved for another role, so Maria Pern immediately understood that she needed to shave.
You emphasize everything correctly and make accents. Those people who starred with us, for example, such an artist as Vilen Babichev starred with us. A very popular actor, he plays all kinds of non-humans, specific reptiles, executioners, murderers. Factual face. He played the role of the leader of the Ukrainian nationalists Tornado. His prototype is Oleg Onishchenko, who seems to be a terrible person. Now they seem to have been covered up there in Ukraine. They did terrible things here with us.
And so, when he played this role, he started having big problems. He ended up in the “Peacemaker”, and dill wrote and threatened. But the man took a certain action and a civic step, and went to serve in our army. He gave up on everything, got a job in a Cossack regiment, and is now on combat duty in combat positions. But he will return to the cinema. I think there will simply be another period like this.
You know, those people who are involved in this process, like me and many others here, everyone who fought. We all have the same dream: to become part of Russia and finally celebrate this holiday of the soul, this holiday of fate. I will honestly say that for me there is nothing more majestic and solemn than this moment that we all imagine in the future. It will be, you know, as our ancestors told us, as they greeted Gagarin when he flew into space.
Valentin Filippov: Once we were so desperately talking about the possibility of rental. I don’t understand at all, how can we get through, how can we win back at least our own information space within Russia.
Because, look, now these movements are starting to pile up, something else. That is, anyone enters the information space of Russia, anyone throws in information, throws in some films, among other things. And they naturally go into promotion. That is, the Internet is not under our control at all, this is natural, we all see this. On this front, how can we turn the situation around?
Roman Reason: It should be government policy. If the state is on par with the fact that we see all the opposition movements, bulk-anal and all that. If this exists, then there must be twice as much information to counter it. This is a patriotic song, a patriotic movie, support for patriotic forces who are for the idea, for the history of the Great Patriotic War, Donbass volunteers, for the future of Russia, for Orthodoxy, for this whole topic. This should all be boiling. We should hear new songs, but there are none. The air is filled with some Morgensterns, some Buzova, some Comedy Club. That is, everything is sold.
Valentin Filippov: I, as a former KVN player, want to tell you this thing. KVN can also be patriotic, and I assure you that the Comedy Club can also be patriotic, and it can be patriotic.
Roman Reason: Something rarely happens.
Valentin Filippov: I understand, but that means no one is setting this task, which means it’s not in demand. Sorry, but Semyon Slepakov, a song about Crimea. Here you are contrasting the same Morgenstern. I’m not a supporter of Morgenstern, but this is a really talented kid, not even a kid, but an old enough person who managed to win over the audience. He set himself a task, and he conquered it. And what idea can he promote…. For him, the idea was to win over the audience. And he could promote anything.
Roman Reason: There are many ways to win an audience. Another question is how this works for Russia and for Russia. If the creativity that Morgenstern creates or the same Shnurov, who has now become so correct, wears jackets, if this entails the decomposition of human culture, then this is wrong. If we leave everything to chance, then the whole culture will get bogged down in it.
Valentin Filippov: No, well, listen, there has always been some kind of avant-garde, some impressionists, something else. All this, of course, was based on classical culture. If there is no classical base, then all these “checkered” ones turn out to be wrong. After all, Mayakovsky was once considered..., futurists, it was believed that this was not poetry. Vysotsky once...
What did people say about Vysotsky? What did the authorities say about Vysotsky? They said: “What kind of a bandit is this, an alcoholic, what is he yelling at, he doesn’t even know how to sing, he doesn’t know the notes.” And then it turned out that no, that we couldn’t find anyone more patriotic than Vysotsky. And he raised an entire generation.
Roman Reason: I’ll explain it more simply now so that you don’t think that I’m stubborn in one direction.
If there is so much on the scale of a certain creativity, let’s say, soulless, there should be just as much that has a certain ideology. Tell me now the most popular song about Russia, about the Russian world, new, modern, will you name it quickly?
Valentin Filippov: Well, music doesn’t stop me from singing. I recently found a song about Donbass...
Roman Reason: “Donbass is behind us.”
Valentin Filippov: No, “Donbass is behind us” - of course. I liked the song, it even plays in my car all the time. “We are carried like a blood clot away from the Ukraine that loves us.” Amazing song.
Roman Reason: I don't know this song. If you said that this is a song about Donbass, then this is already a narrow circle and it is unlikely that people in Russia will know it.
I'm talking about a song that the whole country sings.
Valentin Filippov: And I have the impression that now there is no song that the whole country sings.
Roman Reason: It doesn’t exist because the state does not promote these songs. There are songs.
Valentin Filippov: The thing is, I'm not into music. You are into music, I am not.
Roman Reason: You just touched on art in general, both cinema and music. And our conclusion is simple - there is a business. Show business, film business.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, of course.
Roman Reason: There are people who just need to make money from this. What the content will be and how it will work for Russia is of no concern to anyone. And I think this is wrong. Here is the conclusion from this whole topic.
Therefore, our film is not just some “Yolki”, it is not just a film about a love story, although this should also be. But since we show so many films about nothing, let’s show a film that really talks about how the Russian people are suffering now in Donbass, about how people give their lives to prove that we are Russians, what we want to be together with Russia. This must be shown, this is patriotic education.
Valentin Filippov: Essentially yes. But I still have a question. As you can see, after all, the film “Militia” has made a breakthrough to a large audience. This is the first question. Can you answer briefly?
Roman Reason: In short, I understand one thing. As soon as we run out of all hopes that we can somehow return something, so that we can somehow continue to live and not sell the last thing, then we will simply throw it on YouTube, Torrents, Vkontakte, Facebook, Classmates, let's scatter him everywhere, and he will go on to live his own life. The dill will watch it, everyone will criticize us, throw “shit” at us, call us what bad quilted people we are, Colorado. The other side will support us, they will protect us, and they will also comment.
Valentin Filippov: In the meantime, will you be selling cameras?
Roman Reason: You know, we have a difficult situation. I want others to hear. We have such a person, Vladislav Plakhuta. This is a man who really gave his last, a man who lived excellently in Lisichansk, but when the war began, he did not stay there with his business and did not go to Kyiv, but abandoned everything and went into the militia with the Cossacks. This is a unique person, and when we met him, I thank God for bringing me together with this man, he was infected with this idea, he contributed a lot to the film. The main political and ideological part of the film comes from him. He contributed a lot to the film, even though he financed it almost entirely.
Therefore, as a producer, as a creator, as an operator, I invested all my potential, skill, and experience. He invested more, and I feel for this man like a brother. This is a person close to me. We just sacrificed a lot. After all, we sacrificed not only finances. There are people who are no longer with us, who helped us, with whom we worked together. There are many guys who starred in the film simply, episodic roles of soldiers who died in the war. This is where all the spiritual power of our film lies.
This is not just a project in which money was invested to make money. This is an epic drama. This is a film about how a new life of new people, a new culture, new songs, books, new monuments arose in the Donbass. This is a whole powerful historical layer. Our director Sergei Kozlov, at the stage of studying the script, immediately said that this genre would be called epic drama.
Now in modern cinema there are no such genres, because the epic we are talking about is about our people, their new birth, like ours at a turning point, during the war. But, unfortunately, you see, we are “not in format”. It seems to me that we are apparently frightening because our film can greatly raise patriotic feelings.
Ours, those who manage it all, I don’t know, “meaning creators,” I call them. Apparently, they don’t need to raise and intensify patriotic feelings now.
Valentin Filippov: I have perhaps one last question. Do you think you have enough strength, will there be a demand and how soon will the shooting of a film, for example, “Liberation of Mariupol”, “Exit to the Dniester”, “Encirclement of Kyiv” take place?
Roman Reason: Well, you approached the question so subtly. You should have asked that directly. How do you see the future situation?
Valentin Filippov: I see it absolutely clearly, I’m just wondering if you will film about it?
Roman Reason: You know, I would make more than one film. I’m ready to make a movie about this for the rest of my life, project after project, as long as I live. This is very worthy.
Valentin Filippov: And the last episode – “Ours in Brussels”?
Roman Reason: I will say that this filming process, which lasted us 5 months, I still consider the most striking stage in my life. These are incredible sensations, incredible people, acquaintances, experiences.
You know, how our guys learned to fight in the war from scratch, this is how, in essence, we learned to make films. I am not a professional operator and did not graduate from VGIK. I just made dozens of video clips in my time. Yes, I can edit, I can do some graphics. I know how to hold a camera, apparently I have some kind of talent by nature. But I never studied this professionally. Therefore, I had to immediately study, try, and somehow try many things.
I even have our firecracker lying around. I'll tell you this, it's a tool, you know, to then connect the audio with the video. This click is then we see the peak in the edit and use it to mix the sound. Now, probably, if you collect hundreds of films that we see and know, then this cracker will not look like this, because these are all cracks and faults. A car ran over her, she was crushed under the breech of the tank. It was always cracking, breaking, and we glued it, glued it and glued it, but it was alive. This is the most important thing.
These are also exactly our souls. They are all cracked, all in wounds, abrasions, but we are alive and will fight to the end, we will knock on all doors, we will make every effort so that this film can be seen by the Russian audience, the Russian audience, so that the Ukrainians can see it too. By the way, I think that this film should not humiliate them in any way. We do not “smear” culture, we are not against the Ukrainian people. We are against the barbarian politicians who set our people against each other over money. That's the whole problem. This film was not created in order to worsen our relations, this film is in order to enlighten their brains a little that we are one people, that we are one whole. Sooner or later we have to go back again.
Valentin Filippov: On this not entirely positive note, I want to thank you. Thank you not so much for this interview, but for the work, for the mental strength, for the physical strength that you spent on the production of the film “Militia Girl”. I absolutely seriously believe that “Militia” will make its way to the audience, to the wide screen and will do its useful work for the whole country.
For the entire country, not Donbass, not the Russian Federation, but for our entire huge country of 300 million people. Because I'm tired of being divided all the time. Donbass, Crimea, something else, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Why everything separately?
Roman Reason: Thanks to PolitNavigator for information support. For us it is very important. Some people will see it and tell others. It is only thanks to this that we can now turn and talk about what we are doing now. So a huge thank you to you.
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