Russian online cinema for the first time enters the international market with Russian films

    Tvzavr Online Cinema has released the Russian Cinema app. It will operate on Smart TV in 248 countries.
    The application will show only Russian films, series and cartoons. The project aims to popularize domestic cinema in Russia and abroad.

    Its launch is dedicated to the Year of the Cinema. The project is supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The project budget has reached $ 1 million. The funds were spent on developing the application, purchasing rights to display Russian content worldwide and marketing.

    Russian Cinema will operate independently of the Tvzavr online cinema itself. So far, the application is only available on LG TVs. In the near future, Russian Cinema will appear on other televisions, as well as in online and mobile versions.

    In the application “Russian Cinema” there will be both free and paid content. The creators plan to earn it by advertising, subscribing and selling individual paintings. The cost of subscription in Russia will be 249 rubles per month, the cost of prime will start at 99 rubles. Abroad, the service will be available only by subscription, for 4 euros per month. Abroad, Russian content will be available with subtitles.

    “After analyzing the behavior of a paying user on Tvzavr, we saw that Russian paintings are leading in online rental. The films “Warrior”, Duhless 2, “Gorky 2” overtook foreign films by fees. Blockbusters prefer to watch Russian films in cinemas, online - Russian films, all the more so since Russian films go on Tvzavr [with a short interval after reaching the wide screen], and some at the same time as cinemas, ”said Marina Surygina, Tvzavr CEO.
    Last year, of the 10 most popular films on their platform, only three were Russian. Since the beginning of 2016, this ratio has grown to 7/10.
    The development of the pilot project took about three months. The application consists of four sections: films, series, cartoons and Soviet cinema. The symbol of the application was a nesting doll.

    First of all, the application will be launched in countries with a large Russian-speaking diaspora - the USA, Israel, Germany and countries of Eastern Europe.

    According to the CEO of Tvzavr, by the end of May a bilingual application will be fully ready - in English and Russian. “An international presentation of the project will take place at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 with the support of Roskino,” said Surygina.

    The launch of the Russian Cinema application is a significant and crucial step for the domestic film industry and domestic video services, said Viktor Chekanov, CEO of one of the largest online movie theaters in RussiaMegogo .

    “We have been working with foreign markets for several years and we know from our own experience that the Russian-speaking audience really has a need for Russian-language content, although our audience has a positive response not only to emerging domestic films, but also to foreign content available from Russian voice acting, ” he told RBC.

    In an interview with Izvestia, the head of Enjoi Movies Ghevond Andreasyan commented on the situation :
    The popularization of Russian cinema is a very hard work. No matter how proud we are of Soviet films, I want the same positive reviews to be about Russian cinema, and not just about the Battleship Potemkin. We in Russia do not learn how to shoot Spider-Man. We have a problem with the staff. Therefore, we must continue to make Russian cinema, and we must popularize it. Thanks to this application, I can show a foreigner where he can go to watch Russian films, rather than search for a link on the Internet for him and send by mail.

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