[Global Times Comprehensive Report] Russian film overseas distribution revenue increased from US$8.5 million in the first half of 2023 to US$14.2 million in the same period this year. China is a major export market, with Russian films earning about $2 million from distribution in

[Global Times Comprehensive Report] Russian film overseas distribution revenue increased from US$8.5 million in the first half of 2023 to US$14.2 million in the same period this year. China is a major export market, with Russian films earning about $2 million from distribution in China, most of which comes from cartoons. Due to the development of horror films, Russian film overseas revenue will increase by 5%-8% this year. Analysts believe that insufficient marketing of the film may be a hindrance.

"Hermitage Cats" cartoon

According to the "Film Distributors Bulletin" Russian film overseas revenue data, this indicator increased by 67% year-on-year in the first half of this year, from US$8.5 million to US$14.2 million, of which in the second quarter Revenue was only $3.1 million. The "Film Distributors' Bulletin" said that during the same period, the overseas revenue of German films was US$18 million, and that of Italy was US$20.4 million. The cartoon " Masha and the Bear " maintained its first position (USD 2.8 million), with most of the revenue coming from Mexico (USD 712,000), Brazil (USD 554,000) and Peru (USD 352,000). In second place is the animated film "Cats of the Hermitage" ($2.1 million). The film directed by Vasily Rovinsky was the most popular in Belgium ($751,000) and Spain ($673,000). welcome. "Snow Queen 5: Melting Ice War" is an animated film jointly produced by Voronezh Studio (formerly Wizard Animation Studio) and ctb Films. The film earned $2 million from foreign distribution. The total foreign revenue of all animated films was approximately US$11 million, accounting for 77.6% of the total overseas revenue of Russian films in the first half of this year.

At the same time, domestic films with domestic distribution revenue of more than 1 billion rubles (approximately 78 million yuan) in Russia are not very popular abroad, such as the feature film " challenges " and the comedy "Serf 2". The previous film's foreign distribution revenue was US$539,000, mainly from China (US$515,000), and the film was also screened in 16 other countries. "Serf 2" ranks tenth on the list of Russian films with the highest overseas revenue, with a total revenue of US$399,000, and was screened in 24 countries. The main overseas market for Russian films is China, with total revenue of approximately US$2 million. France was the leader in this indicator last year, with total revenue of $12 million. This year's revenue in China mainly comes from the animated film "Snow Queen 5: Melting Ice War", which is about 1.3 million US dollars. The second country with the highest overseas revenue for Russian films is Brazil, with $1.2 million. There are two other countries with overseas income exceeding US$1 million, namely Italy and Mexico. Rounding out the top five are the Gulf countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman), where the total revenue of Russian films reached $879,000.

Experts from the "Free Finance" investment company said: "Promoting Russian film and television works is an important task to strengthen our country's cultural and economic strength." Experts said that actively promoting Russian films will not only help improve people's cultural and living standards, but also help the country economic growth. Kolesov, director of the new technology department of

j'son and Partners Consulting Company, believes that the reason why animation is popular outside Russia is easy to explain: "Because movies can change character names or images, scene dialogues according to the specific characteristics of the country of distribution." Modestova, general manager of the company "Content Export", believes that feature films such as "Serf 2" and "The Challenge" make foreign audiences feel unfamiliar due to cultural differences. Animation market experts predict that Russian film overseas revenue is expected to grow by 5%-8% in 2024. Modestova said that before the COVID-19 epidemic, exports accounted for 20% of the profits of Russian cartoons, and now this figure has increased to 30%. Modestova believes that the overall low popularity of Russian films abroad may be related to insufficient marketing, because "our films are released without advertising budgets." Russian films must compete for audiences with Hollywood films, whose promotion budgets increasingly exceed production budgets. Modestova took the movie "Barbie " as an example, saying that the advertising cost of the film was US$150 million and the production cost was US$145 million.

This article is published in the "Global Times" special issue of "Russia in Perspective", and the content is provided by "Russian Gazette".