Russia courts Hollywood with vast new studios

MOSCOW (AFP) ― A Russian company has spent $89 million building eastern Europe’s largest production facilities in a field outside Moscow and hopes to lure Hollywood majors to shoot and produce movies.

The idea is to create a modern flagship studio that will make Russia a competitively priced destination for film projects and in turn modernise the local industry.

“It is one of the targets for us to invite international projects to get their experience, to get their technologies,” general-director of the Glavkino grou, Ilya Bachurin, told AFP.

Opened by president Dmitry Medvedev in February, on a recent tour the Glavkino studios were still dusty from the construction process and smelled of paint.

Bachurin, 42, a former impresario and television executive, led the way through the studios to show off echoing sound stages and hi-tech 3-D equipment.

The largest sound stage measures 3,108 square meters, a space so large that it swallowed up a bus parked in the corner.

“It’s the biggest in eastern Europe,” Bachurin said.

The studios have a Hollywood-style sign on the roof visible from passing planes. Their website boasts they are “equivalent to the best studios of America and Europe.”

So far one feature film has been completed at Glavkino: “August 8,” a strongly pro-Russian drama based on the 2008 Russia-Georgia war that was 90 percent funded by the Kremlin.

It aims to attract major global players to do studio shoots and post-production there and pass on their expertise to Russia’s technically lagging film industry.

“In fact we do not need their money ― it’s not our major goal,” said Bachurin.

“We need to attract their experience and their specialists: those who can make the studio a part of the big international filmmaking industry.”

In June Glavkino gave British art-house director Peter Greenaway a voucher worth 30,000 euros ($37,000) to spend on post-production for a planned remake of “Death in Venice.”

Greenaway told Hollywood Reporter he was considering Saint Petersburg as a location.

Without giving details, Bachurin said that Glavkino was planning to submit quotes for several big international projects.

One problem is that Russia offers no tax breaks for filmmakers. Add in a mass of headaches from tough rules on customs to visas and work permits.

“We are going to make special proposals, make prices lower,” said Bachurin.

“This is a pragmatic business. If it is convenient and profitable, people will be ready to do the maths.”

Viktor Ginzburg, a Russian-born film director based in the United States was visiting the studios with a view to making his next film there ― an adaptation of Viktor Pelevin’s novel “Empire V.”

He said he was impressed by the facilities.

“It seems terrific. They should dust it, though,” he added.

Yet he said the hi-tech studios still lacked something: “film culture.”

“You need projection designers, art directors, set decorators, craftsmen,” he said.

“Unfortunately there is a real problem in the Russian film industry right now with these key positions.”