Putin spokesman praises ex-deputy PM Surkov’s legacy, defends ‘pro-state’ cinema

(Interfax – Sochi, May 22, 2013) Dmitriy Peskov, press secretary to the Russian president, has described reports that the Kremlin was taking film-making under its control as fiction but stressed that films produced with state money should have matching content.

“A number of mass media outlets, including the (business) newspaper Vedomosti, have said that all of Surkov’s (Vladislav Surkov, once seen as Kremlin’s chief ideologist, who stepped down as first deputy prime minister and government chief of staff on 8 May)legacy was bad and that the Kremlin would deal with film-making from now on. This is not so, it’s fiction which has nothing to do with reality,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday (22 May).

He stressed that film-making was overseen through the Ministry of Culture and that the money allocated for the Cinema Foundation also went through the ministry’s channels.

“The papers that all of Surkov’s legacy should be swept away – it (the legacy) is very positive,” Peskov said.

According to Peskov, a very complex and very extensive system of support for Russian film-making was put in place in the past. “We hear a lot of laments that the support is insufficient. The support is much greater than in other countries,” Peskov said.

He stressed that “a great deal of money” was being allocated on film-making, and the results should be “much more impressive”.

“The most important thing, of course, is that when the state gives the money it is entitled to expect pro-state content which promotes positive values,” Peskov said. In this case, he said, it was all quite simple: he who pays the money orders the films.

He also answered whether it was possible to criticize the state in those films that are produced with state money. “Criticism of the state can be heard everywhere, all the time. It can still be balanced, and if there is a slant to one side or another, this is no longer interested, there is no longer any demand. So some sort of vicious criticism can never be paid for by the state as the commissioning party,” Peskov said.

The concept of pro-state cinema, Peskov explained, covered such things as, for instance, the promotion of the healthy lifestyle, the fight against alcoholism and smoking, and the campaign for road safety. “The state will never pay for a film where the main character is a drug addict and so forth,” he said. (Passage omitted)

He also confirmed that the Cinema Foundation as a structure will remain. “No-one has yet proposed any other more efficient systems of state support,” Peskov said. (Passage omitted)