“Culture and science can raise the country”

Ihor Savychenko, one of the most successful Ukrainian producers, is a calm person and confident professional with a deep knowledge in the spheres of cinema and economy, who communicates freely with his foreign colleagues in English, successfully presents the films of his company at prestigious international film forums. At one of them, the 5th Odesa International Film Festival, not only did he win in the national competition, but in pitching, too. And this is not the first time.

Namely in Odesa we had time for a conversation about the complicated fate of the national cinema.

Ihor, the civilized world is refusing from concerts of the Russian performers who express their delight at the annexation of the Crimea. The super stars of the world level cancel their tours to Moscow, to Russia, thereby expressing their solidarity with Ukraine. I have also refused from all Russian festivals where I used to take part. However, the competition of the Moscow festival included a Ukrainian film. Why did you decide to do this and why on the whole did you go to this festival?

“Well, the talk about bringing us to the competition started back in Berlin, and not with Mikhalkov, but with the program director Pyotr Shepotynnikov. The team of the festival includes very nice and adequate people, like many people in Russian cinema. Of course, there are inadequate persons too, like Mikhalkov, Okhlobystin, Bezrukov, and unfortunately many others who signed the famous letter on behalf of Russian filmmakers. But it is, let’s say, the other side of censorship to deny the fact that there is a huge number of people in Russia who support us. There are many adequate people and the way they defended our film convinced us that we should go. At first we wanted to refuse. But it is the simplest decision to stay in one row with everyone and say that we are not going, that we are not interested. Besides, I was probably going also because of my personal interest: to look at the people I’ve known for years and see how they have changed. Practically none of my Moscow friends have changed, they understand very well what is going. It is propaganda that is influencing people, people under its influence express their opinion in a certain way, behave in a certain way, and as a result sign this kind of letters. But namely they express support for Sentsov and Ukraine. Unfortunately, most of them are saying approximately the same, ‘I’m selling my apartment in Moscow, buying a house in the country, and an apartment somewhere in Latvia, Lithuania, or the Czech Republic, in order to get permission for residence and not depend on what is going on.’ During this visit I talked to Sentsov’s lawyer Dinze and Sentsov’s cousin to learn firsthand what is going on with Oleh, what chances he stands, what measures should be taken to help him. They say it is good that such a commotion was raised, because this allowed human rights activists from the Amnesty International and the ombudsman, to enter the prison, and owing to this the conditions of his detention were changed: at the moment he is kept in a cell for two people, he has been given access to the library, allowed to visit the shop and receive parcels.”

Do you really think that these are real improvements?

“I think so. He is in a cell for two people. At the same time his roommate thinks that he is a double agent, they don’t talk to each other. This is a prison, no matter which way you look at it. Simply, like in the Soviet Union, references from well-known people are needed to prove that Sentsov is a good director, good father, and an adequate person. This should be sent by mail with real signatures. By the way, they said the letters sent by our European colleagues were very helpful. The initiator was Stefan Laudyn, Director of the Warsaw Film Festival, and the Odesa International Film Festival was very active as well. A whole range of outstanding European colleagues, including Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, Krzysztof Zanussi, Andrzej Wajda, and Jerzy Stuhr, sent their letter. It’s a pity that people who approve the decisions in the Russian Federation hardly know how important these people are, and the letters will hardly have any effect. A video address from people of the same level should be made, and people who are better known for the broad public, i.e., famous European and American actors, should be involved. Oleh’s friends in Simferopol have come up with an idea of publishing his literary works, releasing the film Gamer, distributing all this on discs with the help of big festivals, and using the money from sales both to help Oleh’s family, and pay for the examinations. There is plenty of work to do, money needs to be raised, and this was as well one of the most important goals of our visit to Moscow. As for the prize, we left Moscow before the festival was closed and didn’t appear on the red carpet, we didn’t take part in any entertainment events out of principle. We weren’t going to return for the awarding ceremony, so we asked Serhii Trymbach to receive the award for us and we are very thankful to him for his appeal to the RF government from the stage with a demand to free Sentsov. Surprisingly, Mikhalkov, who appeared on the stage in the final part of the ceremony, supported Trymbach and joined the demand to free Oleh.

“But the film was received very well. Many Ukrainians who live there came and warmly thanked us. At the press conference after the prerelease all questions except for one were adequate. There was a person who asked, ‘Why do you Ukrainians hate us so much?’ Unfortunately, recent materials that condemn us for going there are schmoozing propaganda. Our television and press should not turn into an analogue of Kiselev.”

After long arguments and battles the head of the Ukrainian State Agency for Cinematography was appointed. This person is Pylyp Illienko, although many of your colleagues supported the candidature of Andrii Donchyk. What can you say about this?

“The most important thing is their programs. Pylyp Illienko and Andrii Donchyk have different programs. Donchyk’s program had a moment for which the former head of the Ministry of Culture Kulyniak lost his position. He as well insisted that the state should give support for the state studios. Donchyk mentioned about this at the first session which took place in April and was attended by the minister of culture, MP Kyrylenko, and over 20 workers of cinema. Then in the commentaries I pointed out that this position is      totally wrong. He promised to take this into account, but somewhat later returned to this question again. The Dovzhenko Studio, unfortunately, is not a company capable of carrying out creative process. They can hardly organize it. But people who were shooting the films Krasna Malanka, So Beautiful People, Lost City, and earlier, Car Washers, can tell how they do this. Technically, from the viewpoint of a producer, it cannot be called a studio, like from the viewpoint of bringing up the youth. Yanchuk, the current director of the studio, wants all debuts to go through the Dovzhenko Film Studio. This means that the lives of those who are going to shoot their debut films there will be broken, because they won’t get normal possibilities for shooting and they won’t realize themselves. It goes without saying that the studio takes no interest in further fate of the films, their presentation at the festivals, or distribution. This is a wrong approach: everyone should get an equal access to getting governmental support and state funding. Why do they want these debuts? To keep the film studio afloat. But shooting, let’s say, five debut short films, each of them requiring, let’s say, half a million, out of 7.5 millions they can allot for general studio expenses only 10 percent – 750,000. This is too little to maintain such a giant.

“There should be a totally different approach. At first, a plan of action and a program of the studio reform should be developed and money should be found for this. It should be included in the budget as a separate chapter.

“But all state film studios are not subordinate to Ukrainian State Film Agency on the whole. They are under direct control of the Ministry of Culture. Why do the studios that are not part of the State Film Agency structure be funded from its budget? This moment is absolutely incomprehensible for me. If they are brought under control of the State Cinema Committee, there will be a different context: at least the area of responsibility will be clear. Studios should unite in several concerns. For example, in Kioto 27 a TV complex can be made, the documentary and animated film productions can be reinforced. And it can be the basis for students’ training. So, the program aired by Illienko is part of the development of the Ukrainian cinema as I see it.”

The populist statement that has been repeated for many years on a row that we must make our cinema profitable remains hot air. We have no market for selling it, no flow of production that can be repaid at least thanks to its quantity. Can Ukrainian cinema become profitable in the future?

“I am a mathematician by profession, and we have such a notion as an ‘ideal condition.’ We have an ideal task, where we have 100 percent of Ukrainian cinema fully funded from the Ukrainian market and 100 percent targeted at Ukrainian audience. Can this cinema be profitable? No. Systemic? No. It can bring income only in very narrow segments. What do we need to make a film commercially attractive? We should broaden the markets of selling. We should make the film interesting for other markets. I think we can forget about the Russian market for many years, but there is still a problem with the European markets – we are not on such good terms with them. They recognize only some of our producers with whom they can negotiate. The only way out is European co-production. If you make a film which, for example, costs a million EUR, our part will allot 300,000, 30 percent will come from the European market, for example, some 400,000 from Poland, 400,000 more – from France. The producers of the French studio are interested in distributing the film in their country. My task will be to find a Ukrainian distributor, to sell this film on our television even at a cheap rate and show it in our cinemas, at least for little money. But we can invite world-famous actors, make a new film, shoot it not only in Ukraine, but also elsewhere, and improve its visual quality. This film will be more interesting for our audience than a film which was made solely in our country. The European production has a possibility to be sold abroad, but this entails a whole lot of commitments. The first one is a multinational creative team. I mean if the director is ours, we need to take a cameraman from another country. For example, a Pole. The composers will be French or German. The editing director will come from some other place. There will be extra expenses for translations of the screenplays, because the Polish Foundation accepts the materials only in Polish, the French one – only in French, the Germans may accept in English as well as the Belgians. All this can increase the budget of the film by 10-20 percent. But the logic is that the film will enter several markets. This is the most important thing. Another moment is that our creative persons and technical crew are receiving experience of cooperation on international projects. Everyone has his own style of work, his own technology. This is always interesting, this is an exchange of ideas and thoughts during the production which later has an effect on the creative work. I very much want our filmmakers to get rid of the influence of the Russian factors. I am telling this not from the angle of propaganda, I mean actually the approach to work. Lately most of the Russian television product has been shot here, in Ukraine; those were actually films ordered by the Cinema Fund, patriotic films mostly about the war. For Russia the World War II or, as they call it, the Great Patriotic War is a kind of a western. Everything was shot here following a pattern, because this was easy money. Everything was done by a pattern, starting with setting the light for the performance of the actors, the editing, etc. This creative line should be changed. Europe has a different approach to film releasing; but we should not idealize them, there are people who are simply making money, like everywhere else.”

How is Europe resisting the expansion of American cinema?

“In a specific way. They rarely play on the arena of the Americans. Look at the European films, you will hardly see there anything that would be close by scale to The Borne Identity. The British are a separate story. Being an English-speaking country, they create films that are targeted at the North-American market. Europe is following the way of art-house, auteur cinema, and festival films. The most demonstrative example is Sweden, where the cinema we usually call art-house takes 34 percent of distribution. And there is a culture of cinema-going. What do we have in our country? You go to the cinema, visit some fast-food restaurant, eat a sandwich, drink some beer, buy pop-corn, take some beer to the cinema, sit and eat noisily, loudly expressing your thoughts about what you see, after the cinema there is fast-food again, you drink beer, and go to a club, or home. They have cinephile screenings: these are small cinemas whose owners announce their program some time in advance. Every cinema has a circle of viewers. People go there to watch a film and stay after the screening to discuss it.”

This is also a system of communication.

“Yes, by and large, these are clubs. If we go back to Ukraine, here art-house cinema can hardly overcome one percent of box-office in cinemas. However the cinemas Zhovten, Kyiv, and Kinopanorama work in this direction. Thank God, they have improved the ‘Law on Cinema,’ and art cinema is mentioned separately, with its definition being given and tax preferences being ensured for the cinemas that show it.”

As for today, the prospects of grim development of the events, as a person from the inside of moviemaking, from the inside of the psychologically most strongest caste, the producers, what do you think the life-sustaining activity of filmmaking will be?

“I have been trying to explain to the authorities that cinema and science are two things that can help the country to rise from its knees. Everything that is going on in our country is operation activity, which is just covering the holes. The tubes get rusty; they are patched, because it is too expensive to change them. A way should be invented, based on the new technology, how to make new tubes, something new should be invented, and for this we must develop science. I am exaggerating but culture in a broad sense, not only cinema, allows finding a creative approach to anything.

“Zhan-Mari Kyubiie in his book Porn-Glamour describes our existence, the fact that our culture is at the joint of pornography and glamour. We should break this vicious circle.

“If we have a possibility to visit exhibits, read good books and perfect conditions will be created for all of this, in five or seven years, the culture of perceiving the world, ethic and moral of people will change. The same refers to science, the fundamental science. As soon as fundamental science appears in the country, in five or seven years it will give impetus for innovative things. The nanotechnology of Skolkov failed, because there was a brain drain: only hands were left, and hands can do nothing without brains. The same is happening in our country. We must create greenhouse conditions for scientists, directors, artists, writers, and photographers. There should be a massive state program of support of creative people and scientists. This can raise the country. Speaking about the cinema as part of all of this great process, the following thing should happen. First, we should work with the youth. I am not saying that we should forget about the generation of people over 40, but this is the generation we should target at. We should change our academic education. It is lagging behind. We should give possibility for our children and students to receive a normal material base in order to shoot non-stop, create conditions for visiting short educational programs in the West: workshops, seminars, and lectures. Travel grants are a separate item of the budget. Our short film Mandragora is a debut of cameraman Serhii Lysenko with which he is entering the Lodz University. He will pay for his education himself, but he should go there for the money from the state and then return and work here for two or three years. He cannot be forced to stay, but he should return and apply his knowledge here. If you have studied in some institute of culture in our country, you should have an opportunity to go and finish your education abroad. Secondly, we should clearly understand that an educated person is an asset and he should not be running about looking for some work on the side. There are fellowships all over the world. If you are a scriptwriter or a writer, you can appeal to a foundation and get some money which will allow you to live happily without thinking of anything but the screenplay. Because it takes half a year to write a normal screenplay, and it will take another half a year to finalize it. You write a screenplay, go with it to different programs, listen to what other people say about it, accept this, and make changes.”

In today’s reality it is absolutely utopian to count for governmental support. We give five hryvnias to finance the army, and it is not clear where this money goes. Is not this an empty dream to wait for state funding?

“I don’t think it is utopian. My stand is that the state must allot this money. This is a very simple stand. Speaking of examples, Poland has one percent tax for culture. The budget of our country is nearly 400 billion hryvnias, one percent is four billons. This sum equals to 280 million euros, and we ask for 40 million for cinema. What’s abnormal about this? Without doubt, the army is our problem No.1, because the first cover does not function. But if we had a strong propaganda of our own and protection from propaganda, we would not have had any of this.”