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Russian films drew 50 mln moviegoers in 2017

The year kicked off with Viking and Attraction, two powerful projects that would have been an honor for any cinema market, executive director of the Cinema Foundation says

© Alexey Filippov/TASS

MOSCOW, December 5. /TASS/. Over 50 mln people in 2017 viewed Russian films, Executive Director of the Cinema Foundation Anton Malyshev said in an interview with TASS.

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"To date, the box office of Russian films has already raked in almost 12 bln rubles ($204.26 mln)," Malyshev said, "50 million people in 2017 watched Russian films. I would like to note that last year’s box office reached 8.6 bln ($146.4 mln), and the audience was slightly more than 35 mln people, and that was a record. This year we beat that one ahead of schedule," he added.

The share of Russian films hit 25%. "It is clear that this figure will be adjusted, given that besides such remarkable projects as Furious, Yolki and others there’s Star Wars for example. And right now we cannot say how much they will bring in. This share includes not only the achievements of Russian cinema, but also of foreign cinema," he added.

The hits of 2017

Malyshev highlighted the brightest, in his opinion, movies of 2017. "The year kicked off with Viking and Attraction, two powerful projects that would have been an honor for any cinema market," Malyshev said. "The year continued with two space sagas - The Spacewalker and Salyut-7," each of them beautiful," he proclaimed.

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Head of the Foundation also mentioned Alexey Uchitel’s Matilda, "which in its genre showed good results, not to mention that it was the talk of the town."

In addition, Malyshev singled out The Last Warrior that, according to him, convinced "the industry and the audience that our filmmakers know how to make quality family flicks," and The Legend of Kolovrat, which took third place based on the year’s results after Attraction and The Last Warrior.

Malyshev noted the "confident box office results for the art mainstream," that is films like Loveless, Arrhythmia, Paradise. "We are not used to the fact that artistic works make 100 mln rubles ($1.7 mln)," heexplained.

"This is a really big deal," he added.

Budget for 2018

Talking about the amount of funds distributed by the Cinema Foundation for the production of Russian movies in 2018, Malyshev pointed out that the total volume so far "is the same as this year." The Foundation’s own resources support the theater run, according to him.

"Three billion rubles ($51.06 mln) will be allocated for production, including 2.5 bln rubles ($42.55 mln) for projects by leading production companies, and 500 mln rubles ($8.5 mln) for independent companies," Malyshev said, adding that "these figures are not final."

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