Russian cinema has taken on new dimensions in 2024, with film adaptations of Russian fairy tales, a box office hit after Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita”, and sports dramas. While in the last twenty years, Hollywood films and Russian-US co-productions dominated the Russian screens, the Russian film industry had to learn to be independent, especially after the third year of the military intervention in Ukraine. It’s very interesting to observe where and how the Russian film industry is developing.
According to the Proficinema portal, in 2024, 184 Russian film projects made it to the cinemas. The portal writes: “The Top Ten of the Russian film for the outgoing year is genuinely exciting in terms of numbers. In 2024, eight domestic films earned more than a billion rubles. In the entire history of observation, this limit was exceeded by one to three films annually. For a long time, film adaptations of classical Russian literature were no longer at the top of the box office, but the past year has more than made up for this gap: among the highest-grossing films are ‘Master and Margarita’ by Bulgakov, ‘A Hundred Years Ahead’ by Bulychyov, and ‘Onegin’ by Pushkin.”
Film critic Susanna Alperina of the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper said in an interview with Radio 1 that Russia in 2024 produced some good and high-quality films. “I particularly liked the film ‘Master and Margarita’ – it became a real event, although this book is not suitable for a film adaptation. The filmmakers have found a good way” she said. According to the film critic, all the films that have made it to the Russian cinema today are very well-made, multi-dimensional, and often of great depth.
Fairy tale adaptations are also experiencing a new renaissance. In the past, during the Soviet era, folk tales were adapted by the masters of the film direction and starred with popular actors. Today, several fairy tale films belong to the most successful projects – “Ogniwo”, “The Flying Ship”, “The Three Bogatyrs”, and “The Bremen Town Musicians”.
The success of Russian films can also be expressed in numbers. Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova told the RIA Novosti news agency that the Russian cinema box office revenue has increased by a quarter compared to the previous year. Lyubimova said that as of mid-December, the volume of the Russian film distribution exceeded 43 billion rubles (over 390 million euros), of which 77% accounted for domestic films. The revenue of Russian films in June and July of 2024 was the highest in the last three years, according to the Culture Ministry. The volume of the film distribution market reached 5.4 billion rubles (around 49 million euros) in this period, which is 1.5 billion rubles (over 13 million euros) more than in 2023 and three billion rubles (over 26 million euros) more than in 2022.