The Shanghai film festival has taken a much different approach to wartime Russia’s movie sector — one in keeping with China’s so-called “no limits” geopolitical partnership with the Kremlin.
At the 2023 SIFF Market, a tradeshow-like event that runs in tandem with the festival, and where new international movies are bought and sold, Roskino, Russia’s state-backed film promotion body, will organize a booth titled “Russian Content Worldwide,” where 18 companies will present some 75 new Russian films. It will be Russia’s largest presence at the Shanghai movie market to date.
“Our first, and such large-scale, offline presence at the SIFF Market will significantly strengthen relations between Russian film and animation companies and Chinese and other Asian market participants,” said Ekaterina Naumova, CEO of Roskino, in an official promotional release seen byahead of the event. “We are building our work with China, interacting both with the professional industrial community and with wider audiences.
In recent years, Russian films have not had much presence at China’s commercial box office. One exception is Russia’s internationally popular animatedearned $11.5 million in China in 2018, andThe Snow Queen & The Princess , which released in Russia in February, will be one of the new titles on offer at the Russian booth in Shanghai. Other titles shopped in China will include the fishing-ship disaster film