NEW YORK, November 14. /TASS/. Russian film studios and companies aroused an increased interest among Western industry players at the American Film Market (AFM), Evgenia Markova, director for industry relations at Expocontent, promoters of Moscow film companies at AFM, told TASS.
The American Film Market was held in Santa Monica on November 9-13. It is the most efficient film acquisition, development and networking event in the world.
"Russia was widely represented at the American Film Market this year, and our biggest international partners noted significant progress in the development of the Russian film industry," Markova said.
"Over 100 of the world's largest distributors attended the presentation of projects under the Created in Moscow brand, which exceeds the interest showed to other countries and regions that hosted the same presentations on AFM this year," she noted.
"While high quality of Russian films has been known abroad for a long time, this year foreign colleagues have also marked significant progress in terms of proper international promotion," Markova went on.
"Throughout all the six major international television and film markets, we are observing an increase in the number of exporters and contracts," she added.
Over the past year, the number of references to Russian cinema in foreign media has grown more than 1.5 times, the expert specified. In her opinion, the fact that six Russian films at once were among the applicants for the Golden Globe Award also means that "Russian producers have become more proactive internationally."
In an interview with TASS, Director General of the Moscow Export Center (MEC), Kirill Ilyichev, confirmed that this year the American Film Market has demonstrated a greater interest of Western film industry players in the Russian cinema.
"The event has proved that our cinema is interesting around the world not only as a festival product, but also as a commercial product that can collect a good box office," he said.
"At the American Film Market week, Moscow film companies held about 300 meetings with representatives of the largest distributors and film markets of the world's major film-producing countries. Russian film studios and companies held more than 50 meetings with representatives of China and the US, about 40 meetings — with German distributors, and 20 — with buyers from France, Spain and South America. Thus, the geography of promotion of products by Moscow film studios is becoming truly global," he concluded.
American Film Market
Over 7,000 industry professionals from more than 70 countries converge in Santa Monica every November. They include acquisition and development executives, agents, attorneys, directors, distributors, festival directors, financiers, film commissioners, producers, writers, the world’s press and all those who provide services to the motion picture industry. This year, 15 Moscow film companies, animation studios and distributors presented their products at the AFM under the single brand — Created in Moscow, sponsored by the Moscow Export Center.