SOVIET FILM INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 23377, 8 December 1937, Page 8

SOVIET FILM INDUSTRY

PROGRESS IN RECENT YEARS There are studios in ten cities in the Soviet Union for the production of “Art” or “story” films, and this number includes two studios for the production of films for children, it is stated in a report on the Russian film industry, published in the British Association of Cine-Technicians’ journal. Cinemas number 28,600 as against 1095 in 1917, and though there is a tendency in cities where alternative entertainment is provided to support the theatre in preference to the cinema, the expansion of the Russian film industry is steadily proceeding. In 1936 attendances in cinemas throughout the Soviet Union numbered 650,000,000. Moscow has two studios, Kiev two, Leningrad one, and the remainder are situated at Odessa, Yalta, Tiflis, Erivan, Baku, Tashkent, Askbad and Stalinbad. A large group of studios is now being built in the Caucasus, and when this is completed all the more important Soviet films will be made there, the site having been chosen for its excellent weather conditions and varied scenery.

The Soviet film industry is at present too small to be able to maintain players on a full-time contract, .or to train them exclusively for the cinema. All regular players, therefore, divide their time between the stage and the screen, their salaries being regulated by ability, and not by demand. Playing in studios by day and on the stage at night is discouraged. Leading players, writers and directors earn up to 2000 roubles a month. The plan to produce by 1938 an annual quantity of 1,000,000,000 feet of film stock will certainly not be fulfilled, the report adds, but “it is safe to say that by now the Soviet Union .is able to produce sufficient stock for its own requirements. In general, the quality has not reached the highest standard achieved abroad, and the leading Soviet cameramen are allowed to use European and American stocks when the subjects chosen demand delicate or exacting pictorial effects.”