Russia's Doors kickstarts global deal negotiations

Doors was held as part of the St Petersburg-based Message To Man International Film Festival.

Of deals in play, the UK’s Stealth Media Group is in talks for a package of Doors titles including Betrayal (Izmena), Break Loose (Vosmerka), Kicking Off (Okolofutbola), The Major (Mayor) [pictured], Metro and Thirst (Zhazhda). Mitch Mallon of US VOD distributor RLJ is in talks for a US VOD deal for Metro and a Russian catalogue of films, and Brazil’s Habanero is considering several titles for Latin American distribution, including The Major for Mexican distribution. Also, Digital Media Rights is launching its second year of partnerships with Roskino, Hulu and Amazon to promote Russian films digitially. Deals are expected to be confirmed by AFM.

The 27 executives and companies who attended included Jiten Hemdev from India’s Star Entertainment, Michael Cowan of the UK’s Stealth Media Group, Mathew Levy of US-based Passion River Films, Deepak Sharma from India’s PVR Pictures, Ilann Girard from Arsam Internaitonal (France), Fred Tsui from China’s Media Asia, Garrett Rietman from Verizon’s VOD platform in the US, Mitch Mallon of RLJ Entertainment from the US, Alfredo Calvino from Brazil’s Habanero Film Sales, Michael Hong from Hong Kong’s Digital Media Rights, and Laurent Danielou from Rezo Films in France.

Catherine Mtsitouridze, head of Roskino, said: “I wanted to broaden the range of genres that we could show at this year’s edition of Doors following last year’s experiment when we only included one film, Spy (Shpion), which hadn’t been screened on the festival circuit but which proved to be the biggest success. This time, out of 16 titles, at least nine have some international commercial potential, for example Betrayal (Izmena), Break Loose (Vosmerka), Kicking Off (Okolofutbola), The Major (Mayor), The Game of Truth (Igra V Pravdu), Once Upon A Time (Odnazhdy), Metro, Thirst (Zhazhda), Soulless (Dukhless). I’m glad that this year we are seeing buyers from other parts of the world; and as well as the Americans, we have distributors from the BRIC countries, which opens new commercial opportunities for Russian cinema. Roskino is currently in different stages of talks with each of the companies that were invited to Doors.”

Jiten Hemdev from Star Entertainment added: “It seems to me that titles from the Doors catalogue deserve to be seen worldwide, especially if there is high-quality translation. I’m glad that I have discovered what kind of product Russia now has to offer. For me Doors worked out excellently.”

Also, Ilann Girard from Arsam International said: “In my view, Russian producers have to take part in more co-productions. This is one of the most efficient ways to find international partners, to open up some space for your film. To have your film screened in another country it’s even more important to work with international buyers, distributors – and in this sense, Doors is an extremely useful event for all of us.”

The market was held with the participation of the Culture Ministry of the Russian Federation, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Government of St. Petersburg and with support from Aeroflot Russian Airlines.  The new Velikan Park multiplex hosted screenings organised by the Russian Film Commission USA with its official partner Rostelekom.

The films on offer at Doors this year are:

• Break Loose (Vosmerka), directed by Alexei Uchitel
• Waiting for the Sea ( V Ozhidanii Morya), directed by Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov
• A Long and Happy Life (Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn), directed by Boris Khlebnikov
• Soulless (Dukhless), directed by Roman Prygunov
• Thirst (Zhazhda), directed by Dmitry Tyurin
• The Game of Truth  (Igra v Pravdu) directed by Victor Shamirov
• Betrayal (Izmena) directed by Kirill Serebrennikov
• The Major (Mayor) directed by Yuri Bykov
• Metro directed by Anton Megerdichev
• True Blue Story (Odnazhdy) directed by Renat Davletyarov
• Kicking Off (Okolofutbola) directed by Anton Bormatov
• Bite the Dust (Otdat Kontsy) directed by Taisia Igumentseva
• The Role (Rol) directed by Konstantin Lopushansky
• Slide (Skolzheniya) directed by Anton Rosenberg
• Shame (Styd) directed by Yusup Razykov
• Pipeline (Truba) directed by Vitaly Manskiy